Speed Climbing Made Its Olympic Debut And Viewers Were Loving Every Second Of It

The Tokyo Games have welcomed a bunch of new sports to the Olympics.

Surfing, softball, skateboarding, karate, freestyle BMX as well as plenty of others have all made their debuts in Tokyo.

But it seems one event in particular has captured the attention of fans slightly more than the other.

Sport climbing has burst onto scene and viewers watching the Olympics from home were absolutely loving it.

If you haven't seen it already, we'll try and explain it in the simplest of terms.

It basically sees two highly-skilled rock climbers from opposing country's race up a vertical wall 15-metre as fast as they can while attached to a safety rope.

The first person to touch the buzzer at the summit of the tricky climb is declared the winner and therefore advances to the next round.

Sounds pretty straightforward, right?

Wrong.

These athletes aren't just casually trudging up the steep wall like you and I in our local indoor rock climbing centre, they're absolutely flying up there at record speeds.

To put it in perspective, the average time for a climber to get from the bottom to the top of the 95-degree wall was around seven seconds during the heats.

During the Finals, Frenchman Bassa Mawem clocked a time of 5.45 seconds to clinch gold and also set a new Olympic record.

And if you watch the replay of his run, even the cameras are struggling to keep up with his pace.

Combine the sheer athleticism of the competitors with the contagious enthusiasm of the play-by-play commentators and you've got arguably one of the most entertaining sports events on the Olympic calendar.

Viewers watching from home couldn't take their eyes off the action.

The men's event has already wrapped up with Mawem crowned champion.

As for the women's final, that's scheduled for tonight with fireworks expected again.