How New Zealand's fastest speed climber trains for the Olympics

We follow Julian David, who is representing New Zealand in men's speed climbing at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. He's gearing up for one of his last events before the Games, the IFSC World Cup in Chamonix, France. The team's coach, Rob Moore, works with Julian and his teammate, Sarah Tetzlaff, for 25 to 30 hours a week to practice and refine their intense training regimen. For the very first time, speed climbing will be judged as a stand-alone event at the 2024 Olympics, and the pair are the first from New Zealand to qualify.

Sam Watson broke his own world record of 4.79 seconds at the 2024 Paris Olympics with a time of 4.74 seconds.

Julian David achieved a new personal best of 5.24 seconds.

At the time of publishing, this narrows their difference to 0.5 seconds.