Tokyo (AFP)

Four qualified, the maximum quota and a team built to win: French climbing has given itself the means to bring back medals from Tokyo, where this growing sport will make its entry into the Olympic Games from Tuesday.

"With two speed specialists, Anouck Jaubert and Bassa Mawem, and two more versatile, Julia Chanourdie and Michael Mawem, we have medal goals," assures climbing DTN Pierre-Henri Paillasson.

At 25, Julia Chanourdie is the most prominent of the four selected.

The one who started climbing at the age of four in her parents' gym became, in November 2020, the first woman to successfully climb the Eagle 4 route at the foot of Mont Ventoux (Vaucluse), listed 9b, or a maximum level on the climbing difficulty scale.

Only two women before her had passed a 9b route.

But from Tuesday in Tokyo, it is on artificial routes that she will face 19 other climbers.

"The cliff serves as a balance of life for me, I need both practices to evolve well at high level. In cliffs we can do everything in one. We can go in an extreme way. I will reach the limits, that makes progress for the competition ", she explained in June to AFP, on the occasion of the release of a film (" Julia ") recounting her career.

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- "Little bubble of confidence" -

In competition, his favorite discipline is the so-called "difficulty" test: climb as high as possible on a wall of about fifteen meters, by tracing the route yourself.

Fairly true to the spirit of the cliff.

But at the Games, it will also have to shine on the other two specialties of climbing, bouldering (without insurance, climbers must climb boulders 4.5 meters high) and speed (make the best possible time. on a route known by heart).

The only Olympic event consists of a combination of the three disciplines, in order to give a chance to all profiles of climbers.

In Paris in 2024, climbing has already obtained two men's and two women's events: speed and a combined bouldering / difficulty.

Chanourdie and the entire French team were treated to careful preparation: arriving in Japan two weeks before their events, they took up residence in the town of Kurayoshi, a Mecca of Japanese climbing 700 km from Tokyo, where they have benefited from top-level facilities to prepare.

"It's great to have made this passage to be in a little bubble of confidence before joining all the teams and discovering the more impressive side of the Olympic Games", said Julia Chanourdie a few days before her entry into the running.

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"I've always seen the Games on TV, I'm a fan," continues the young woman, "rock climbing was not originally intended for the Games. When I knew it would become Olympic, it was for me something to try. I would have been very sad if the Games were canceled ".

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