Montgomery County’s very own Noah Bratschi, a 2018 graduate of Churchill High School, has brought home the silver medal in Speed Climbing from the Pan American Games. Speed Climbing is a sport where athletes compete on identical routes with the goal of reaching the top of a 15m-high wall as quickly as possible.
Bratschi previously won the bronze medal at the 2021 International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC) World Championship in Moscow, Russia to become the first American speed climber to win a World Championship medal in thirty years (since 1991). With that, he also became the first American to ever win a medal on the modern IFSC homologated speed climbing wall.
Sport climbing made its debut at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, with athletes competing in speed, bouldering and lead, with added scores at the end. The lowest scorer was the winner. The 2024 Olympics in Paris will offer two events; a combined competition of bouldering and lead events, as in Santiago, and the speed competition. Bratschi, who barely missed qualifying for the Olympics at the Pan American Games, will have another opportunity at the Olympic Qualifying Series next year.