It was two golds for Indonesia, but both were totally different stories as Desak Made Rita Kusuma Dewi won the women’s event and Veddriq Leonardo won the men’s.

Made Rita won in Chamonix taking her second successive gold after a win in Krakow last week, and she was joined by two climbers making their first visit to a World Climbing Series podium – Italy’s Guilia Randi who took silver and France’s Capucine Viglione who took bronze.

Made Rita moved steadily through the finals rounds in a competition that threw up a few surprises. Team China were eliminated in the first round of the finals, world record holder Emma Hunt was beaten in the quarter-finals, and the medal races involved three climbers who had never been onto the podium before.

Hunt was beaten by Randi who seemed destined for a medal beating climbers who on paper should have taken the wins throughout the finals. She was eventually beaten by the gold medallist Made Rita who clocked 6.22s to Randi’s 6.51s.

After her win Made Rita said: “I’m very happy. Tonight I had the best performance and just enjoyed myself. I’m happy to get this gold for my country and my team. In my mind I always say let’s do it and just get the best performance.”

Thanks to her win, Made Rita had her mind changed about the French mountain town: “I wasn’t feeling the best about the venue because of the sun in the day and I didn’t get much sleep, but tonight it has changed and now I love Chamonix.”

Winning bronze, the first medal at the level, was made a little sweeter for Viglione as she won it in front of an adoring home French crowd who gave her a little extra to beat USA’s Isis Rothfork.

Viglione won her bronze with a time of 6.41s compared to Rothfork’s 6.53s

Full women's Speed results can be found here

Made Rita is on a roll of golds now, but teammate Leonardo has been plagued by injuries since capturing the gold at Paris 2024, but Chamonix was his return.

Leonardo had an outburst of emotion after a 4.86s run got him through qualification and into finals, and he continued showing that emotion all the way through right to the very end.

On his way to gold, Leonardo – a former world record holder himself - beat USA’s Sam Watson, and current record holder Zhao Yicheng. He also came up against teammate Antasyafi Robby Al Hilmi in the final race of the event.

Leonardo clocked a 4.89s for gold compared to Robby Al Hilmi’s 5.11s for silver.

After his win Leonardo said: “I feel great. I feel grateful. It’s my first gold medal after the Olympics and it’s taken a long time to get it. I want to say thank you to everyone, it means a lot.”

Talking about his injury problems lately, Leonardo said: “I haven’t climbed properly because I haven’t trained properly. I tried my best and I think this is a real achievement. I haven’t really touched a wall in training and then raced in Madrid and Krakow, and I just feel grateful for this achievement.”

Robby Al Hilmi beat Ryo Omasa in the semi-final which meant that the Japanese climber had to go up against Yicheng for the bronze medal.

Omasa stepped up his game when he needed to as Yicheng is a formidable opponent, even at this very early stage of his career. Omasa posted a personal best time of 4.70s, but so did Yicheng. It came down to the third digit on the clock – Omasa was 4.701 and Yicheng was 4.704. Omasa won the bronze.

Full men's Speed results can be found here

The Speed climbers will now head to China for a double-header in Guiyang and Chongqing on the four-lane wall in September, but in Chamonix the focus is now on Lead with the semi-finals and finals for the men and women closing the event tomorrow.

News and updates about all World Climbing events will be available on the World Climbing website, and on the Federation’s digital channels: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Threads, TikTok, X, YouTube, and exclusively for the Chinese audience, Douyin, Weibo, and Xiaohongshu.