Alberto Gines Lopez – Spain - qualified

BUDAPEST – Comments from Spain’s Alberto Gines Lopez after he finished fifth in the Men’s Boulder & Lead at the OQS in Budapest on Sunday and qualified for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Alberto Gines Lopez – Spain - qualified

On the OQS and qualifying for Paris 2024:

“I’m happy with the ticket to Paris, that is why we came here, but I am a bit disappointed with the final. The boulder round was super hard, I couldn’t climb at all, and then in the lead, one mistake, I couldn’t fight. I wanted to win today but I couldn’t. Let’s focus on the next comps and Paris. Keep training, keep competing.”

On who he was video calling after the competition:

“I was calling my grandparents. They were super happy. I was a bit upset, but they made me laugh. My grandmother got a tattoo of the Olympic rings after Tokyo. She is 78 or something like that. She told me she is making an appointment to get another tattoo for Paris. She is amazing. And my grandfather is everything to me too. We are super connected.”

On whether two climbing disciplines at Paris, instead of the three, will make it easier or harder to defend his Tokyo 2020 gold medal:

“This weekend and in Shanghai, in almost every run, I was top one or top two, except today. That gave me a lot of confidence for Paris.”

On France’s only qualifying two athletes for Paris 2024 due to the quotas:

“It’s quite unfair, but that’s the problem with being from a strong country. The Japanese have the same problem. Now it happens with Mejdi (Schalck), one of the strongest climbers in the comps right now. Everyone was expecting him to get to Paris.”

OIS nm/lcm/wc