CHENGDU - Host nation China claimed five of the six medals on offer Thursday, including both men's and women's titles, as the sport climbing competition of The World Games 2025 opened with Olympic-level battles in Chengdu.
Chu Shouhong took the men's speed single gold in 4.80 seconds, while 2024 Paris Olympic silver medalist Deng Lijuan edged teammate Qin Yumei by just one-hundredth of a second to win the women's crown in 6.40 seconds.
The competition field was stacked with elite talent. Absent were Paris men's silver medalist Wu Peng and women's champion Aleksandra Miroslaw of Poland, but of the six medalists from the Paris Olympics, four were in action in Chengdu.
Indonesia sent a full-strength squad led by Olympic champion Veddriq Leonardo, while the United States fielded men's world record holder and Olympic bronze medalist Samuel Watson alongside top-ranked Emma Hunt. Kazakhstan, Japan and other nations also sent their strongest lineups, making the start list resemble an Olympic Games.
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China advanced two men and three women to the semifinals. Deng narrowly beat Qin in the women's final, with Zhou Yafei taking bronze after a 6.31-second run to edge Indonesia's Desak Made Rita Kusuma Dewi by three-hundredths of a second. The sweep gave the hosts all three women's medals.
"When the national anthem played and three flags were shown in front of me, I felt very excited and happy," Deng said. "I didn't think too much today, just focused on doing my own job well and on every climb."
The men's gold-medal race pitted Watson, battling a left shoulder injury, against 18-year-old Chu, who is in his first year competing on the international circuit. Watson had fought past Leonardo, China's Long Jianguo and other top names to reach the final, but his 4.96 seconds was not enough to beat Chu's personal-best 4.80.
"My coach told me just to remember the moves and keep a calm mind," Chu said. He also thanked his opponents: "Their strength pushed me to break through my limits again and again."
"Chu absolutely deserved the gold today," Watson said afterward. "I think in a lot of other circumstances, I would be very disappointed with losing a final match. But to be quite honest today, I've gone through a roller coaster of emotions. I'm happy to have composed myself after talking to my team back home and managed the injury to put up a good performance."
Asked about chasing the world record, Watson admitted the injury had made it "really hard" this time. "It would be really cool to do that on this stage, but sometimes it's just not the way it worked out," he said. "The beautiful thing about a world record is that it just takes one really good run, and you have to climb so many times to actually do that."
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Long Jianguo of China took the men's bronze.
