The final Olympic Qualifier Series for sport climbing came to a close in Budapest on Sunday with Brooke Raboutou and Zach Hammer punching their tickets to earn their spots on Team USA, completing the roster for Paris 2024.
"It was exciting, it was hard," says Raboutou.
"Yesterday was a very hard bouldering round which left us very tired. We had a lot of adrenaline today, but that was the cherry on top. I’m excited and I’m happy with my climbing."
Raboutou, 23, from Boulder, earned a perfect score of 50 points in her qualifying events in Budapest and Shanghai, placing second in Boulder and first in Lead on Sunday and earning the title of Olympic Qualifier Series champion. She's the daughter of former climbing world cup champions Robyn Erbesfield-Raboutou and Didier Raboutou and her older brother Shawn is also a competitive climber.
Meanwhile, Zach Hammer, 28, of Ann Arbor won his final race with a finish time of 5.15 seconds, securing him 6th place in the Olympic Qualifier Series.
“It’s been a long journey and I’m super proud of myself," says Hammer, who has been climbing since the age of three.
The US team says it's the only team to have filled all eight of its quota places, with the maximum of two quota spots in each event: Speed Climbing and Boulder and Lead climbing.
The six remaining athletes had already earned their spots during last year's World Championships and Pan American Games including New Jersey native Jesse Grupper, who took gold in last year's Pan American Games and is the oldest climber on the team aged 27.
The Team USA lineup for climbing at the Paris Olympics is as follows:
Speed climbing
- Zachary Hammer
- Emma Hunt
- Piper Kelly
- Sam Watson
Boulder and Lead
- Colin Duffy
- Natalia Grossman
- Jesse Grupper
- Brooke Raboutou
Olympic Sport Climbing events will take place between August 4 and 11, 2024.
Sport climbing made its Olympic debut at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. New this year, the Speed discipline has been separated from the Combined Boulder and Lead format and medals will be awarded to three men and three women in the Speed category, with an additional six medals awarded in the Combined format.
