Paris was a whirlwind but what a privilege it was to be a part of it. I’m very much enjoying being home again but my the last few weeks are finally starting to sink in and I’m realising that I’m officially an Olympian.
An Olympic Games is a pretty special event. With most of the world’s attention set on one place for two weeks, everything feels a lot more intense and exaggerated. Suddenly it’s not just the climbing community watching us compete!
It was a hard thing to process while I was out in France but it feels as if I have woken up from a dream now that I’m back in Sheffield.
I went there not really knowing what to expect and it certainly beat whatever I could have imagined. The athletes’ village really had everything you could need or want for a home-from-home; a post office, supermarket, hairdressers and more than enough coffee shops to keep the thousands of athletes staying there caffeinated.
Our climbing cohort really contributed to the success of Team GB in Paris, with my teenage team-mate Toby Roberts bringing home our first Olympic gold medal.
Hamish McArthur and Erin McNeice’s strong performances and fifth-place finishes on top of Toby’s gold showed the depth of talent we have in this country. The performance in Paris was a statement to the world from UK climbing.
It was amazing to see how much diversity there was among teams and I really enjoyed seeing so many different cultures and races around the village.
Although the climbing community is incredibly friendly, it still very much lacks diversity and so it was personally a very inspiring environment to be a part of and I enjoyed a chance to step out of the climbing bubble and not feel different for once.
Climbing clearly left its mark after Tokyo, as every session at Le Bourget was sold out and the crowd supplied a great atmosphere throughout the competition. It was really exciting to see such appetite for our sport and I really think this is only the beginning.
On a more personal level, however, the competition didn’t go as well as I had hoped.
Unfortunately, I broke a toe a few weeks before Paris, so my prep for the event was far from ideal.
I’ve had my fair share of injuries and I did my best to work around this one but not being able to wear a climbing shoe or boulder for the month leading up to the competition was a big obstacle to overcome.
The boulder round was tricky – as I knew it would be in the circumstances. I tried my best on a set of climbs that exposed my weaknesses and poor preparation in the month before but sadly I finished in a disappointing 19th place.
I had been on a long journey to qualify for the Olympics and put a lot of time into improving my bouldering so it was frustrating not to be able to show the progress I had made over the years.
With my score from the boulder round being so low I knew there wasn’t much I could do to improve my final rank, so two days later I pulled my shoes on again for the lead round determined to go out and enjoy myself. I climbed well on the lead route but didn’t quite show what I’m capable of in that discipline. And with the end of that six-minute opportunity to showcase my climbing, came the end of my Olympic competition.
With a lot of my family and friends in the crowd proud of me for just being there, I chose to celebrate both my ninth-place finish on the lead route and the whole journey which started as an inspired little girl watching the Games on TV.
It was a long journey to get to Paris and I’m definitely feeling tired after 11 years of international competition. But this Olympic Games lit a small fire inside me and the idea of redemption in Los Angeles in 2028 is bouncing around my head.
But after reflecting on my Paris experience my focus quickly switched to last week’s European Championships and our national championships this coming weekend.
With Paris closing the door on the combined format, I’m really excited to get back to focusing on my preferred discipline of lead. But it’s fair to say, I may just have the Olympic bug.
Molly Thompson-Smith is an ambassador of The North Face – Never Stop Exploring
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