Climber Reza Alipour Wins Bronze in Italy

Speed climber Reza Alipour won a bronze medal at the International Federation of Sports Climbing in Arco, Italy on Sunday.

Chamonix winner Ukrainian Danyil Boldyrev and Aleksandr Shilov of Russia advanced to the final after small slips from Villars World Cup winner, Dmitrii Timofeev of Russia and Speed world record holder Reza Alipour in the semifinal, IRNA reported.

Recording times under 6 seconds in the finals, Boldyrev bested Shilov in the last race with the fastest time of the day (5.58s) for back-to-back victories and the lead in the Speed season rankings, and Shilov won the silver medal for Russia.

In the small final against Timofeev, for the bronze, Alipour rebounded to return to the top of the Speed podium as he clocked 5.59 seconds.

Alipour nicknamed “Asiatic Cheetah” and “Vertical World’s Fastest Man” holds the record for the fastest climb ever set.

On Apr 30, 2017, in Nanjing, China, Alipour set a new world record; scaling a 15-meter wall in 5.48 seconds, snatching the gold medal, and shattering the previous record of 5.60 seconds held by Boldyrev who stole the gold medal from him this time.

In 2013 at the World Cup in Haiyang, China, he broke the world record and registered 06.24 seconds to win the first gold medal in speed climbing in Iranian history. Then in 2014 in Spain, he registered 05.97 seconds and broke his own Iranian record in speed climbing.

Upon setting the new world record of 5.48 seconds at the IFSC World Cup Nanjing, he was named the Usain Bolt of speed climbing.

In February, Alipour won the poll for the athlete of the year award by the International World Games Association. According to Theworldgames.org, Alipour won the title with 90,790 votes - just ahead of four-time World Games champion in powerlifting Larysa Soloviova from Ukraine with 90,036 votes.

IWGA is in charge of those sports categories which are not categorized among Olympic Games. But, the International Olympic Committee has recently reconsidered its list of the games and climbing is among potential options to enter the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games meaning Alipour could represent Iran at the games in the climbing sports category.