NUR-SULTAN – Kazakh mountain climber Rishat Khabibullin won a bronze medal Aug. 21 at the 2019 International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC) Climbing World Championships. The third-place finish made him the 12th of the nation’s athletes to qualify for the 2020 Olympics, reported Olympic.kz.
Rishat Khabibullin. Photo credit: olympic.kz.
“The main goal for me was to win an Olympic licence and get into the top 20. I fulfilled my goals, fulfilled the standard for participation in the Games and also became the third in the all-around. And, at the moment, I am very pleased with these achievements. I’m satisfied with my result,” said Khabibullin.
Eight athletes competed in the world championship, with Khabibullin the only Commonwealth of Independent States country representative. The fight for medals took three forms – speed, bouldering and complexity. The results in each carried a certain number of points, which were then multiplied.
Khabibullin was first in the speed competition, nearly reaching the world record set by Iran’s Reza Alipourshenazandifar in 2017. Khabibullin’s time was 5.915. Alipourshenazandifar’s, 5.48.
Khabibullin was eighth in the bouldering competition and fifth in complexity, resulting in his third place finish. Japan’s Tomoa Narasaki won gold and Austria’s Jacob Schubert took silver.
“The World Cup was held at the highest level. I am very glad that I was able to take part in it. I note that the competition programme and days of rest were correctly set. In general, I liked everything,” said Khabibullin.
To date, #TEAMKZ (Kazakh Olympic team) has 11 licenses to participate in the Tokyo Games. In addition to Khabibullin, Olympic standards have been met by Dmitry Balandin (100 and 200-metre breaststroke); Olga Rypakova and Georgy Sheiko (track and field); Yevgeny Gidich (cycling road race), men’s classic archery team, whose representatives Denis Gankin, Ilfat Abdullin and Sanzhar Musaev will also perform in personal competitions, and Vitaliy Khudyakov (open water swimming).
