Chinese climbers sweep men's, women's speed gold medals at World Games

Athletes from host nation China dominated the men's and women's sport climbing speed events at the 2025 Chengdu World Games on Thursday, securing five of the six medals on offer.

Chu Shouhong took the men's speed title in 4.80 seconds, while 2024 Paris Summer Olympics silver medalist Deng Lijuan edged compatriot Qin Yumei by just one-hundredth of a second to claim the women's speed crown in 6.40 seconds.

Both fields were stacked with elite talents, despite the absences of China's Olympic runner-up Wu Peng and Poland's women's champion Aleksandra Miroslaw. Nonetheless, among the six medalists from Paris 2024, four were in action in Chengdu.

Indonesia boasted a full-strength squad led by Olympic champion Veddriq Leonardo, while the USA dispatched men's world record holder and Olympic bronze medalist Samuel Watson, alongside top-ranked Emma Hunt. Kazakhstan, Japan, and several other nations also sent their strongest lineups, ensuring that the start list resembled top-level competitions like the Olympics.

China advanced two men and three women to the semifinals. Deng narrowly beat Qin in the women's final, with Zhou Yafei earning bronze after her 6.31-second sprint edged Indonesia's Desak Made Rita Kusuma Dewi by three-hundredths of a second. The podium sweep gave the host nation 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 season competing on the international circuit. Watson had fought past Leonardo, China's Long Jianguo, and other top names to reach the final, but his time of 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, before also thanking 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" at this event.

"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."

China's Long rounded out the men's podium with bronze.