She is climbing for medals, now she is supporting her friends in Paris
Małgorzata Włodarczyk, a student of technical physics at the Institute of Physics - Centre for Science and Education of the Silesian University of Technology, once again represented our University brilliantly in the concluded season of the Polish Academic Championships in sports climbing. Now she keeps her fingers crossed for her friends competing at the Olympic Games in Paris and hopes for medals.
Sport climbing is becoming more and more popular around the world. Three years ago in Tokyo, it was included in the Olympic Games program for the first time. This discipline is divided into three competitions. The first one is bouldering, in which the competition takes place on lower walls without belaying, and mattresses are the protection. Competitions are played on short climbing routes, called problems. The score is determined by the number of completed problems of varying difficulty within the time limit. The next one is a timed climb - with belaying and a 15-meter-high climbing route. The result is determined by the sum of the times achieved on the two routes. The last competition is leading, i.e. climbing with difficulty - these are two routes with different levels of difficulty. The measured height determines the win - the highest grip touched counts.
In this year's Polish Academic Championships held in Lublin, Małgorzata Włodarczyk took third place in the general classification in the bouldering competition, as well as first place in the bouldering and time trial competitions and third place in the difficulty competition in the classification of technical universities. She thus confirmed that she belonged to the academic leaders in this discipline, because she returned with medals from the AMP (Polish Academic Championships) also a year earlier.
- This time the competition was much more intense than last year, because there were some really good competitors. Although it wasn't easy, I managed to take third place in bouldering in the general classification. It took place on the first day of the competition and turned out to be very demanding, so the next day I was tired in subsequent competitions, but I managed to advance to the finals - recalls Małgorzata Włodarczyk.
Her father gave her a passion for sport climbing. She has been training it for over ten years, she was even in the junior national team. And although she ultimately chose science, her passion for this discipline remained. What should you do to achieve success in it?
- You just need to train regularly - and not only on the climbing wall - preferably several times a week under the supervision of an experienced trainer. I haven't had enough time lately and I've been training twice a week. And although my form did not improve, it did not decline, it stabilized, which was confirmed by this year's AMP ( Polish Academic Championships)- explains the student of the Silesian University of Technology.
In the coming days, Małgorzata Włodarczyk will keep her fingers crossed for the Polish representatives competing in sport climbing at the Olympic Games in Paris. These are Aleksandra Mirosław and Aleksandra Kałucka, with whom she had the opportunity to compete in the time trial competition at this year's and last year's AMPs.
The competition in this discipline in Paris will take place from August 5th to 10th. Our student does not hide the fact that Polish fans can count on medals in this discipline, especially from Aleksandra Mirosław.
- The chance that we will win a gold medal is really high - says the AMP medallist. - At these Olympics, unlike previous ones, timed climbing will be treated separately from leading and bouldering. This solution is very beneficial for us. Our competitors, although they are very good at timed climbing, are much worse at leading and bouldering. At this level, the victory is often determined by the opponent's mistakes. The repeatability of error-free runs is important. Then the winner is decided by hundredths of a second.
The student also suggests what to look for during the broadcast of sports climbing competitions.
- It is worth paying attention to what the competitors do before the race - he explains. - Each of them usually has their own ritual, which they repeat in the same way before the race. These are activities such as setting up the starting platform, closing your eyes to run along the road in your mind, waving your arms... I think this is an interesting fact to observe that not everyone is aware of.
