Who Is the Speed Climbing GOAT? The Case for Each Candidate

Every sport has this argument and almost none of them can settle it. Eras change, equipment changes, the field changes, the event itself changes.

Speed climbing is the exception, and it is worth appreciating how unusual that is. The route has not changed since 2007. Same 15 metres, same 5 degree overhang, same 20 hand holds in the same positions. Zhong Qixin钟齐鑫Zhōng Qíxīn in 2009 and Zhao Yicheng赵一程Zhào Yīchéng in 2026 climbed the identical problem. There is no other major sport where two athletes seventeen years apart competed at exactly the same task.

So the numbers actually mean something here. We pulled wins, world records, and how long each athlete personally held the record. Here is the case for each candidate, and the case against.

The women's argument is the sharper one

Aleksandra Mirosław. 18 senior world-level wins. Eleven world records. Three World Championship titles. Olympic gold at Paris 2024, in the first Games where speed had its own medal. She held the record for a cumulative 4.9 years and was the first woman under 6.2, 6.1 and 6.0 thresholds as they fell.

Iuliia Kaplina. Ten world records, and here is the number that complicates everything: she held the world record for a cumulative 6.5 years, longer than anyone in the history of the discipline, men or women.

That is the whole debate in two lines. Mirosław has more records, more wins, more titles and the Olympic gold. Kaplina spent more of her career as the fastest woman alive.

Which matters more, accumulating records or being untouchable for longer? Mirosław set eleven records partly because the era she competed in was moving fast and records fell constantly. Kaplina's 6.5 years reflect a period where the record was harder to move at all. Neither fact is entirely to the athlete's credit.

Our read: Mirosław, but not by the margin the medal table suggests. The Olympic gold is a tiebreaker of circumstance as much as ability, because Kaplina never got a Games where speed stood alone.

The men's argument has no clean answer

Four genuinely different cases.

Zhong Qixin. 18 senior world-level wins from 2007 to 2019, the joint-highest total in the sport alongside Mirosław. He won across twelve seasons on the standardized route. Only one world record, though, which is the hole in the case.

Evgenii Vaitsekhovskii. 15 wins between 2004 and 2011, and 1.9 years holding the record. His peak straddles the standardization, which makes part of his record incomparable to everyone else's, and that is a real problem for his case rather than a technicality.

Reza Alipour Shenazandifard. Held the men's world record for a cumulative 4.1 years, comfortably the longest of any man. For four years, the fastest human on this route was Iranian. If the GOAT is whoever was untouchable for longest, the men's answer is him, and almost nobody says so.

Veddriq Leonardo. Three world records, ten wins, and the first standalone Olympic gold in the discipline's history at Paris 2024. He is the answer if you weight the biggest single stage most heavily, and he is still competing.

Then two specialists worth naming. Kiromal Katibin and Samuel Watson have six world records each, the most of any men. Katibin's came in a remarkable burst as the sub-5 barrier fell. Neither has the win total or the tenure to top the list, but if the question is "who moved the record most", it is those two.

Why the era comparison is fairer here, and where it still breaks

The route being frozen removes the biggest objection you would raise in any other sport. But three things did change, and honesty requires naming them.

Holds and surfaces. Hold brands and wall texture have improved measurably. Modern Geckoking holds on a well-maintained surface are faster than what was bolted in 2009. That is worth real hundredths, possibly more.

The beta. The Tomoa Skip did not exist for most of Zhong's career. An athlete competing today inherits solutions the earlier generation had to climb without.

Depth of field. Winning a World Cup in 2009 meant beating a much shallower field than winning one in 2026. Paris 2024 made speed a viable specialization and the field grew accordingly. Eighteen wins across a thin era and eighteen across a deep one are not the same eighteen.

The first two favour modern athletes. The third favours the historical ones. They do not cleanly cancel.

The honest verdict

If the GOAT is peak dominance, it is Kaplina on the women's side and Reza Alipour on the men's. Nobody else spent as long as the fastest person alive.

If it is total accumulation, it is Mirosław, with Zhong Qixin as the men's answer.

If it is the biggest moment, it is Mirosław and Veddriq Leonardo, the first two standalone Olympic champions in the sport's history.

If it is pushing the sport forward, it is Katibin and Watson, six records each.

Our position: Mirosław is the closest thing the sport has to a consensus GOAT, because she is the only candidate who leads or nearly leads on every axis at once. The men's answer is genuinely open, and anyone who tells you it is obvious is picking one metric and hiding the others.

Ask us again in three years. Zhao Yicheng is 4.54 and still improving.

See the receipts

Every ratified world record, oldest to newest, is on the world records page. Full competition histories, win counts and career spans for every athlete named here are on their climber profiles.

Got a different answer? That is the point of the argument. Bring it to the Skool community, which is free to join, and make the case with the numbers.