Emma Hunt found the number first. In the quarter-finals of the World Climbing Series in Krakow, on 4 July 2026, the clock stopped at 5.99 seconds — and a barrier that had stood over speed climbing since the discipline reached the Olympics fell. The 23-year-old from Woodstock, Georgia became the first woman to go sub-six, on Saturday, 4 July, at the World Climbing Series stop in Krakow. Her time bettered home favourite Aleksandra Miroslaw's previous world record of 6.03 by 0.04 seconds.
The run in the Main Market Square
The setting sharpened the achievement. Unlike the traditional two-lane knockout format used at the Olympic Games and previous World Cup events, the Krakow stop featured a four-lane format in which four climbers race simultaneously. Hunt built toward the record by degrees. She advanced to the round of 16 with a time of 6.07 seconds before clocking a historic 5.99 in the next round to become the first woman to complete the standard speed route in under six seconds. The wall itself is the sport's great leveller: athletes go head-to-head, scaling identical walls as fast as they can, with identical holds allowing for world records in the event.
The record landed before the day's headline duel could arrive. Miroslaw, climbing in her own city, answered quickly. Making her first World Climbing Series appearance of the season, she responded with a 6.04-second run in the quarterfinals, narrowly missing reclaiming the world record. The two eventually met in the four-lane final, but their head-to-head duel — in what is likely to be Miroslaw's last World Climbing Series stop before retirement — was derailed when the Polish star registered a false start. Hunt then slipped in the final. The record run, though, was already written.
A step in the trajectory
This is the result her career had been leaning toward. Hunt finished fifth at the 2024 Paris Olympics. She won the World Climbing Series stop in Madrid in June. The mark she erased belonged to one of the sport's defining figures: the previous record of 6.03 was set by Olympic gold medalist Aleksandra Miroslaw, who had lowered the world record 11 times starting with the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. To take a tenth of that lineage, on Miroslaw's home wall, gave the number its weight.
Afterward, Hunt spoke of the place as much as the time. "I love Krakow," she said, adding that "the crowd is huge and they do an amazing job running this event." Her beginning was modest: a 23-year-old from Woodstock, Georgia, she got started in climbing after seeing a portable wall in a mall.
From a mall wall to the first woman under six. The clock will remember the moment before she does.
