With athletes already in China for the World Climbing Series Guiyang last week, most have moved a few hours north to the mega city of Chongqing to once again battle for podiums, medals, and world records.

Taking place at Datianwan Stadium in the Yuzhong District on 18-20 September, Speed climbers have an opportunity to capitalise on good form, or maybe put right some wrongs from last week’s event.

One climber definitely hoping to carry on the success is Indonesia’s Antasyafi Robby Al Hilmi. In Guiyang he took his first ever World Climbing Series gold, posting a personal best time in doing so in the final race to finish in style.

“I feel very happy and grateful for my victory in Guiyang,” said Robby Al Hilmi, “but I don't want to get carried away celebrating the victory, I need to focus on the next World Climbing Series here in Chongqing.”

Robby Al Hilmi stopped the clock for gold in 4.65s, just 0.11s away from China’s Yicheng Zhao’s world best time of 4.54s – and the Indo climber thinks he can reach that target: “Of course I can climb faster, I want to break the world record in the future.”

With another World Climbing Series event so quickly after the last, climbers can have mixed feelings about competing. Your mental and physical state of mind can dictate how the second competition will go, but Robby Al Hilmi is definitely in favour:

“Of course it's good to have two competitions close together, because we can immediately focus again on the next event. For good climbing, I'm still looking for the right pattern to maintain a good performance which I will carry on in Chongqing.”

After a successful Guiyang event, and getting back into competition mode so quickly again, Robby Al Hilmi is a man on a mission: “I want to secure the second gold in my career and maintain the current World Climbing Series first overall position for this year.”

While Robby Al Hilmi got a personal best to win gold, as did China’s Lijuan Deng in the women’s final on her way to gold also, there were a host of other records broken.

New Zealand through Helen Lee and South Africa through Aniya Holder produced not only national records, but continental records for their respective regions. New Zealand also took Oceania records in the men’s and women’s relays.

Going one step further, China’s gold medal winning team of Yongzhi Ling and Yicheng Zhao in the men’s relay added a world record to their Guiyang gold. The relays are still in their early days, but 9.75s is a seriously fast time. What was even more impressive was the consistency of the team – if you take two digits, both clocked a 4.79s run.

All of these climbers will once again be on the start line for racing, but there are a couple of changes in the registrations.

South Korea’s Speed team have returned home in preparation for the Asian Games where Climbing features next week, but they have been replaced with the Kazakhstan and Polish teams, so Olympian Rishat Khaibullin and Olympic medallist Aleksandra Kalucka will be in action among others.

All of the main players in the Series rankings presented by Euroholds for the men are in Chongqing, with Robby Al Hilmi looking to stay ahead of Zhao, Shouhong Chu, Ryo Omasa and Sam Watson for the overall title.

Ukraine’s Polina Khalkevych and USA’s Emma Hunt have a chance to overhaul women’s leader Desak Made Rita Kusuma Dewi ahead of the final competition in Santiago, Chile next month as she misses the event due to her participation in the Asian Games.

SCHEDULE

Friday 18 September

12:15-13:55 Women’s Speed Qualification
14:05-15:30 Men’s Speed Qualification
19:30-20:40 Women’s and Men’s Speed Final

Saturday 19 September

11:25-12:25 Mixed Speed Relay Qualification
19:30-20:25 Mixed Speed Relay Final

Sunday 20 September

10:45-11:25 Women’s Speed Relay Qualification
12:30-13:30 Men’s Speed Relay Qualification
20:00-21:25 Women’s and Men’s Speed Relay Finals

*All times UTC+8:00

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.