We spoke with Capucine Viglione, French speed champion and qualified for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games

Capucine Viglione, double reigning French speed climbing champion, recently qualified for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games following the Olympic Qualifier Series in Budapest and Shanghai. We were able to chat together and discuss the Games and its qualification.

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She doesn’t know it yet, but with this victory, Capucine Viglione validated her ticket for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games © Gaël Bouquet/FFME

Climb: Can you introduce yourself for those who don’t know you?

Nasturtium Viglione: I am Capucine Viglione, member of the French team, French speed climbing champion and I have just qualified for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games!

Grimper: You seemed to say that qualifying for the Olympics was the biggest goal of your career so far, can you explain why?

Nasturtium Viglione: I think the fact that it’s the Olympics is self-explanatory ha ha! It is the most watched and anticipated sporting event. And this year, it’s even more magnificent as they take place in Paris. Since I was little, I have been fascinated by this competition. It has always been an important event to me and one that I have wanted to participate in for a very long time, even before climbing was an Olympic sport.

Just as a spectator, it’s so much emotion. I remember, during the Tokyo Olympics, I was working and watching the climbing events on a small screen next door. I cried in front of my TV ha ha! Watching people I knew participate, it was completely crazy. I ran into Alberto [Ginés López] on the youth circuits, and he was there, and he won! Obviously, I only wanted one thing, to take part. So when we found out that speed would be a separate discipline from the other two, I gave it my all to qualify one day.

Climb: How has your preparation been different this Olympic year from other usual World Cup seasons?

Nasturtium Viglione: There was a lot more pressure. This is the main difference. Already last year, it was not a classic year since you had to rank among the 32 best in the general classification to be selected and participate in the OQS. We weren’t going to the World Cup like we usually go. And I didn’t manage to qualify during the TQO in Rome so in the end, we found out very late that I was qualified. In fact, everyone who participated in the OQS trained as if they were going to the Olympics, we couldn’t do it any other way. This makes it even more difficult for those who failed to qualify. It really makes me feel bad for all my friends, who worked like crazy during these two years and were under all this pressure and who in the end weren’t taken on.

Climb : As the great competitor that you are, we saw you quite disappointed after your defeat in the quarter-final in Budapest. When did you realize you were officially qualified? Can you describe the moment to us?

Capucine Viglione: I was devastated. I hadn’t done any calculations and I didn’t want to know. At the time, I was focused only on the competition. So I didn’t know and after losing, I cried all the tears in my body for long minutes. It was terrible. Sylvain [Chapelle] (coach of the French speed team, editor’s note) came to console me but he didn’t tell me straight away that I had qualified. I think he thought I already knew. Seeing that it didn’t stop, he ended up telling me… and I didn’t stop crying. Honestly, it was so much accumulated fatigue combined with a lot of relief. (Tears well up in his eyes.) Just talking about it again brings back a lot of emotion!

Climbing: A word on Manon Lebon’s qualification?

Capucine Viglione: It’s great! We’ve trained together quite a bit, both of us, and it’s great to see that it’s paid off. She’s so young too! (19 years old, editor’s note). And like that, we’re two climbers representing France at the Games!

Climbing: With your good performance in Shanghai, there was a good chance that you would qualify for the Olympics thanks to the ticket awarded to the host country. How did you approach the second OQS in this scenario?

Nasturtium Viglione: To be honest, I didn’t go into that kind of calculation at all. This reserved place didn’t interest me. In any case, my goal was to qualify sportingly by getting into the top five of the OQS. I wanted to earn my place, to feel legitimate to go to the Olympics. I’m going because I’m one of the best, not because France is hosting the Games.

And then during the qualifications in Shanghai, I beat my personal record with a time of 6.68 (also the French record, editor’s note). It’s really becoming a serious time and that’s when I told myself that I had the capacity, including to challenge the strongest, even if there is still progress to be made. But paradoxically, doing such a good time put me under incredible pressure. Qualifying for the Olympics was no longer an achievement but an imperative, something that I absolutely had to achieve because I had proven to myself, and also to everyone, that I had more than enough level to go to Paris this summer. Between the two OQS, I had a real panic attack, I wondered what people would think of me if I failed. Above all, there was a risk that people would normalize the fact that I managed to qualify when there is so much work and pressure behind it.

Climb : I think I already know your answer, but do you think you’re still far from your potential?

Nasturtium Viglione: Yes haha! There, when I look at this run in Shanghai, I still see so many errors, things that I can improve, optimize to continue to improve this time.

Climb : And concretely, what are the areas of progress that you can work on to improve your time in the short and medium term?

Capucine Viglione: There are lots of details to correct and I have to continue to train, to improve my explosiveness. I also want to make adjustments in my method. After the Olympics, I plan to work on the method that many men use up there. Almost everyone goes left now, without taking the right hand hold of the final section. Today, I think there is only one girl who goes like that on the circuit. I think this is a method that can suit my explosive profile.

Maximum concentration… Speed ​​is an extremely demanding discipline where each error can prove fatal © Gaël Bouquet/FFME

Climb : What are you going to do between now and the Olympic Games?

Capucine Viglione: Mainly training. Working on micro-details. We’re also going to do the Chamonix World Cup. For Briançon, we haven’t decided yet. Maybe I’ll take part but I think it’s a bit close to the final preparation camp for the French Olympic team.

Climbing: You said you weren’t going to the Games to “string beads.” What are your ambitions for Paris?

Capucine Viglione: Ha ha yes, it’s true! Everything is possible, especially in speed where everything goes so quickly. There is a lot of risk-taking and no one is safe from making a mistake. And with what happened in Shanghai, yes, I tell myself that I’m aiming for the medal!

Climb: For you, Alexandra Miroslaw is the undeniable favorite for the Olympics?

Nasturtium Viglione: As I said, you never know what can happen in speed. Anything can happen. It is certain that at the moment, she is the strongest, quite clearly. Now, she was also the strongest in Bern at the world championship and she did not win. So no, I think that nothing is less certain than her victory.

Climbing: The world speed record is a record that never stops moving. Do you think it will still evolve a lot? Is sub 6 possible?

Nasturtium Viglione: The fact that we climb on the same route all the time allows us to work on lots of specific points, to always seek perfection in each movement, which regularly makes the record progress, as the methods improve, that the climbers know the route. So yes, I think it will drop further and obviously go below 6 seconds. I was the first French woman to go under 7, I would like to be the first to go under 6! Well, we’re not there yet and there’s still a lot of work to do…

Climbing: This makes me think of one last question: is it possible to develop the speed route?

Capucine Viglione: Honestly, I don’t think so. It’s been the same for years and I’m not sure the athletes who have been training on it all that time would agree. This seems even less likely to me since it is an Olympic discipline. There is an Olympic record and changing paths would render it null and void. On the other hand, I have ideas of things that could help our sport evolve. I was discussing it yesterday, there could even be several Olympic medals in speed, with a relay system for example. It would be cool to have our entire French team climbing for a medal, right?