U.S. Olympian Emma Hunt became the first woman to scale a standardized 15-meter speed climbing wall in under six seconds.
Hunt, fifth at the 2024 Paris Olympics, clocked a world record 5.99 seconds at a World Climbing Series event in Krakow, Poland, on Saturday.
NEW WORLD RECORD! 🔥 Emma Hunt has become the first woman to break the six second barrier in speed climbing! ⏱️
— TNT Sports (@tntsports) July 4, 2026
The American set a world record of 5.99 seconds at the World Climbing Series Krakow 👏 pic.twitter.com/Vx9QTVWiHI
Hunt, a 23-year-old from Woodstock, Georgia, got started in climbing after seeing a portable wall in a mall.
The previous record of 6.03 was set by Olympic gold medalist Aleksandra Miroslaw of Poland last September.
Miroslaw, who is expected to retire later this year, had lowered the world record 11 times starting with the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
In speed climbing, athletes go head-to-head, scaling identical walls as fast as they can. All top-level competitions have identical holds along the wall, allowing for world records in the event.
A standardized 15-meter wall was introduced in the early 2010s.
