York’s Hamish McArthur ‘loved every minute’ of the first step on his Olympic journey as he became Britain’s first-ever male sport climber to compete on sport’s biggest stage.

McArthur, 23, finished eighth in his boulder semi-final, with the lead semi-final to follow on Wednesday – scores are then combined and the top eight make Friday’s final.

The packed crowd at the specially designed venue in Le Bourget created a raucous Monday morning atmosphere and McArthur, as one of the first to take to the stage, earned a rapturous reception for his efforts.

“This is the most receptive and entertaining crowd I’ve ever climbed in front of,” he said, who is one of over 1,000 elite athletes on UK Sport’s National Lottery-funded World Class Programme, allowing them to train full time, have access to the world’s best coaches and benefit from pioneering medical support – which has been vital on their pathway to the Paris 2024 Games. 

“They just love it, and you can tell by how they cheer everything you do. I’ve never been in a place like it.

“I felt like I performed really well, I felt unbelievably close to getting more tops.

“The round was really hard. I feel I have more to give but it’s so hard in this sport to give everything.

“You can feel like you’ve done incredibly well and had a heroic performance, but you’ve just not quite got the points you deserve.

“I can’t complain at all, I had a great time out there and I loved every minute.”

The bouldering stage of boulder and lead is made up of four walls, with climbers given five minutes to navigate each one.

Points are determined by progress up or along the wall, with five points for reaching the first zone, 10 for the second and 25 for the top – 0.1 points are deducted for every unsuccessful attempt to reach the next scoring position.

McArthur, who scored 34.2 from a possible 100, hopes the high-octane sport achieves cut through back home on its second appearance on the Olympic programme.

“It’s already happening and something like this is just going to trampoline that,” he said.

“This event is going to do a lot for the sport, there’s no way it doesn’t.

“I went to see other sports already and they have absolutely nothing on this.

“Even the gymnastics, which is obviously a massive spectator sport, has nothing on this and the environment. This is just wild.”

McArthur had his kilt-clad family in the stands cheering him on and has opted against staying in the athlete’s village, instead renting an apartment near the venue with his girlfriend.

“I’ve been having a great time,” he said.

“Not staying in the village is quite nice in a lot of ways to have my space, chill out, do stuff for me.

“I’m loving the experience and I’m going to go into the village a bit later in the competition to see that environment as well and get the best of all of it.”

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