By Addison Burke, Sports Editor

After spending her entire life competing, 2023 Xavier alum Piper Kelly is heading to the Olympics this summer for speed climbing. Kelly started climbing when she was just six years old, joined a competitive climbing team when she was 10 and made the U.S. team in speed climbing at 16 years old. 

During her time at Xavier, Kelly studied exercise science which she said helped her with training and development as an athlete. Kelly even mentioned how her smaller class sizes allowed them to look into various aspects of her own performances. 

“My biomechanics class was like five of us, and so we spent a whole day analyzing the biomechanics of my start on the speed wall because it was like we could since it was such a small class,” Kelly said. “My education was super valuable in my own training and development as an athlete.”  

Sport climbing, which includes boulder, speed and lead, made its debut at the 2020 Tokyo Games, where athletes had to compete in all three disciplines. For the 2024 Paris Games, there will now be two champions crowned, one in bouldering and lead, and the other in speed, which is where Piper will compete. Only 14 athletes are invited globally to compete in speed climbing for the Olympics, with no country guaranteed a spot except for the host, France. There is a max of two athletes for each country. 

“Our world championships were in August of last year, and the top two finishers there received an invite…then each continent has a continental championship. So the Pan American Games was actually North and South America combined—that was in October, and I won that,” Kelly said.

At the Pan American Games held in Santiago, Chile in October 2023, Kelly went head-to-head in the final against American teammate Emma Hunt, who had already secured a spot for the Olympics two months prior at the world championships. Kelly set a personal best competition time of 7.52 seconds and secured her spot to the Olympics with the win against Hunt. 

“I got to the top and saw my time turn green, which meant it was the faster time, and I felt like I was having a heart attack,” Kelly said. “We’re like 15 meters up in the air and it takes like 10 to 12 seconds to get down, and I just felt like I couldn’t breathe the whole time I was coming down.”

Kelly shared how it felt finding out she would be competing in the Olympics.

“I’ve been working for it for a while now and it’s like yeah, part of me believed it was a possibility. Six weeks prior, I had moved out to Utah in order to train full time so I left everything to come out here and train, so at least part of me believed it was real or that it could happen,” she said.

Kelly will compete alongside American teammate Emma Hunt this summer and the 12 other athletes who qualify. Seven of the 12 spots have already been secured. The 2024 Paris Olympic Games begin on July 26 with women’s speed climbing beginning on Aug. 5. 

“It’s like hard to fully believe that it could happen, so it was kind of just disbelief for even a couple of days, it took a while for it to really sink in. And sometimes, I’m still in disbelief, but it is a pretty crazy feeling.”