TOKYO—If you have a micro-attention span, speed climbing will fit your viewing needs. Even the 100-meter sprint might seem glacial by comparison. 

The race offers acrobatics—jumping, swinging, pulling and sometimes falling—all well under the time-limit of an Instagram story. 

The world record for speed climbing currently belongs to Iuliia Kaplina on the women’s side. She scurried up a 15-meter wall in 6.96 seconds in November. On the men’s side, the record belongs to Indonesian climber Veddriq Leonardo: 5.208 seconds, set in May. 

Speed climbing, along with lead and bouldering, made its Olympic debut Tuesday afternoon, with the men’s qualification round taking off at Aomi Urban Sports Park here. The competition was part sporting event, part fast-paced outdoors music festival. 

The sport itself pits two athletes against each other on a 15-meter, or roughly 50-foot climbing wall outfitted with holds. Lead climbing involves spidering up a similarly tall wall while tethered to a safety rope. Bouldering involves a shorter 4.5-meter vertical course and lacks a top rope. Bouldering and lead climbing are timed in minutes. Each athlete races against the clock to complete the climb in the allotted time.

All but one single speed-climbing contest went down in less than 10 seconds. The slowest clip was 12.2 seconds. 

“It’s got to be one of the quickest events in the Olympic calendar,” said Australia’s Tom O’Halloran, whose best time was 7.34 seconds. He speculated: “Surely the discus stays in the air longer than we’re climbing up that wall.” 

Russia’s Iuliia Kaplina competes in the women’s sport climbing speed qualification on Wednesday.

Russia’s Iuliia Kaplina competes in the women’s sport climbing speed qualification on Wednesday.

Photo: -/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Regardless, that means that by the end of the week—when the first medals in climbing are handed out—the newly re-crowned World’s Fastest Woman, Jamaica’s Elaine Thompson-Herah, may have a debate on her hands about whether that’s really true. And the same goes for Lamont Marcell Jacobs, who won the men’s 100-meters Thursday—a first for Italy. 

The sprinters raced for 10.61 seconds and 9.8 seconds, respectively.

“If they did 15 meters in 9.89 seconds, nobody would be impressed,” said Germany’s Alexander Megos of the slower of his two attempts. 

Each climber had two shots at breaking the world record. The midway point seemed to trip some of them up as they leapfrogged up the vertical wall. A handful lost their grip and fell, only to be left hanging by a rope. In the end, Leonardo’s record stood. He did not compete.

But France’s Bassa Mawem came close. He jumped and pulled his way to the top in just 5.45 seconds, setting a new Olympic record on his first attempt. He finished both races under 6 seconds, the only competitor to do so. 

His brother, Mickael Mawem, was one of two others to scale the wall under that threshold. His second finish time was 5.95 seconds. 

“We train for that. The difference we have is we climb with the hands and the feet, and the other guy goes fast just on his legs,” said Mickael, 31. 

“Bassa is speed, speed, speed,” he added. 

Japan’s Tomoa Narasaki, a favorite to win here, narrowly beat Mickael, clocking in at 5.94 seconds his second time around.  

Kyra Condie, who’s competing alongside the Russian Olympic Committee’s Kaplina Wednesday, said she’s vying for the new title of fastest vertical woman, instead of just fastest.

“I think technically the 100-meter sprint is faster in meters per second,” said Condie, one of two American female climbers to compete Wednesday. “By a lot.”  

Indeed, top sprinters move at well above 20 mph. 

But sprinters are not working against the force of gravity, as climbers are. In fact, the elements can help them. Wind can propel them, sometimes so much so that record times are invalidated. 

Kai Harada of Japan and Yufei Pan of China compete.

Kai Harada of Japan and Yufei Pan of China compete.

Photo: dimitris tosidis/Shutterstock

Speed climbing tends to favor a body type that more closely resembles that of traditional sprinters rather than leaner climbers, said rock climber Alex Honold during on Instagram Live on Monday. Speed climbers aren’t always the best lead and boulder climbers, and vice versa, he added. 

The current Olympic king of the vertical sprint, Bassa, struggled with the bouldering discipline, failing to reach the top in all four courses. He ranked 18th out of 20 in the discipline. He hurt his arm during the lead event, but still qualified for the final on Aug. 5, alongside his younger brother. 

“If you look at a lot of the speed climbers, they look like the 100-meter-sprint specialists,” said Honnold. “You can compare it to the 100-meter sprint where they’re incredibly muscular.”

The holds for speed climbing are standardized, making comparisons between races more feasible than with the other two events, said Honnold, who scaled Yosemite National Park’s El Capitan in 2017. 

In that way, speed climbing is “the most Olympic of the three disciplines,” he added. 

Like the addition of surfing and skateboarding to the Olympic lineup, the inclusion of speed climbing rankled some. 

The uniformity of speed climbing highlights a critical flashpoint: speed climbing doesn’t have a place in natural settings outside climbing gyms, some say. 

The tension between mainstreaming of the sport versus maintaining its naturalist ethos runs deep in surfing and skateboarding as well. 

Unlike in skateboarding for which athletes could earn Olympic medals in two different competitions—park and street—climbers only get one chance to medal. 

“It’s pretty taxing physically and mentally,” said the U.S.’s Colin Duffy, 17 years old and a high-schooler. “I think I was ready to put it all out there today.” He also qualified for the final. 

The speed climbing route is 15m high and the holds are placed in standardized positions so the route is the same at every competition.

The speed climbing route is 15m high and the holds are placed in standardized positions so the route is the same at every competition.

Photo: Jasmin Walter/Zuma Press

Honnold compared the combined format to triathlon. Athletes had to train for and then compete on all three disciplines on the same day.

“It’s a lot,” he said. 

Nathaniel Coleman, the American male climber, put it differently: “I think [the format is] a nice introduction to climbing. I’m ready for it to be gone.” 

He won’t have to wait long. For the Paris 2024 Games, the climbing triathlon will be divided into two events: speed and combined boulder and lead.

Write to Daniela Hernandez at daniela.hernandez@wsj.com