Ukrainian rock climber Khalkevych won her first World Cup silver medal in Spain
Eighteen-year-old Ukrainian athlete Polina Khalkevych achieved a historic milestone by winning her first senior-level medal at a Speed Climbing World Cup event. The competition took place in the Spanish city of Alcorcón, a suburb of Madrid.
For the young Ukrainian, this tournament marked only her second appearance in the final round of such a high-level competition, according to the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine.
The path to the medal proved to be a series of intense and spectacular duels on the wall for the Ukrainian. She confidently advanced through the qualifying round with the seventh-fastest time (6.79 seconds), after which she began a successful run through the single-elimination bracket. In the opening round of the playoffs, Halkevych beat Italy’s Giulia Randi by 0.12 seconds, and in the quarterfinals, she knocked out the host nation’s representative and the tournament’s second seed, Spain’s Lesley Adriana Romero Pérez, with an impressive time of 6.41 seconds.
In the semifinal heat, the Ukrainian climber snatched victory from China’s Shaocin Zhang in an extremely fierce battle, beating her by just six hundredths of a second and securing the silver medal. In the decisive final showdown, Halkevych competed against 2023 World Silver Medalist Emma Hunt from the United States. The American athlete demonstrated phenomenal speed and finished with a new American record (6.08 seconds), while Polina Halkevych completed the race with a time of 6.39 seconds, officially becoming the World Cup silver medalist. This result marked a tremendous breakthrough for the young Ukrainian, whose previous best result in her adult career was a tenth-place finish at the start of the current season in Wuzhang, China.
Ukrainian athlete Yevheniia Kazbekova became a two-time European silver medalist in sport climbing. The championship took place in the Swiss city of Villars.
Iranian athlete Elnaz Rekabi competed in the Asian Rock Climbing Championships, held in Seoul, South Korea, without a hijab. The athlete simply tied her hair back in a ponytail. In this way, Elnaz Rekabi showed her support for the mass protests in her homeland.
