At 19, Mejdi Schalck embodies the present and the future of French climbing. But, for his first World Championships (until August 12), which he approaches as a favourite, in Bern, the climber, winner of two World Cup stages this season, in Hachioji (Japan) and Seoul, was overtaken by his age. “I was really, really stressed,” he says. There are many stakes, between a title of world champion and qualifying places for the Paris Games. »
When he entered the race on Tuesday August 1, Mejdi Schalck qualified for the semi-finals of the bouldering event, one of the three sports climbing disciplines with speed and difficulty, which consists of go as high as possible on a route that can go up to 20 meters. “Blocking, where the surface to climb does not exceed 5 meters, is more fun. It’s more freestyle, it fits my personality better, “explains the French champion of this discipline in 2023.
Yet Schalck had clinched a silver medal in difficulty at the Junior World Championships in Voronezh, Russia, in 2021. Explosive and versatile, the 1.72m climber relies on pure innate strength and his qualities of flexibility. To “maintain a good level in difficulty, a discipline that requires enormous resistance in the fingers and forearms”, the Frenchman inflicts a large volume of training on himself, between physical preparation and specific climbing sessions (24 hours a week) , and shows great dietary rigor to “avoid unnecessary weight gain in the lower body”.
The 2024 Games in sight
Sacrifices that the native of Montreuil (Seine-Saint-Denis) imposed on himself from the age of 13, when his mother, a doctor of Algerian origin, decided to move to Chambéry so that Mejdi, eldest of siblings of three, can benefit from supervised training “in the best club in France”. His progress is dazzling. Two years after his arrival, he joined the French team and finished 2? in a European Cup stage for young people with difficulty.
However, nothing predestined Mejdi Schalck to such a course. “My mother saw me climbing trees all over the place,” he recalls, amused. When I was 8, she enrolled me in the climbing club in my town, in Arkose Montreuil. And I liked it right away. Parc Jean-Moulin-Les Guilands de Montreuil, where he clung to his first holds, is not so far from the climbing site of Le Bourget, where the events of the Paris Olympics will take place: “C it’s less than 10 miles from my house! »
For the second appearance of climbing at the Olympics (after Tokyo in 2021), the speed test has been separated from the combined, which will combine bouldering and difficulty. “I’m good at both disciplines. This new format gives me more chances to be Olympic champion, my dream. Alongside Oriane Bertone (18), winner of her first bouldering World Cup stage in Prague on June 2, Mejdi Schalck symbolizes the promising new generation of French climbing. “There is a real enthusiasm for climbing in France”, underlines the young man. The number of licensees within the French Mountain and Climbing Federation – more than 115,000 in July 2023 – is constantly increasing.
But, to reach Olympus, Mejdi Schalck will first have to qualify for the Paris Games. In Switzerland during the Worlds, ten places will be awarded to the highest ranked climbers (the first three of the combined as well as the champion and vice-champion of speed, for women and men). In the semi-finals on Friday (at 10 a.m.), there will be twenty of them vying for six places in the final (at 6:30 p.m.). “It’s not going to be easy, between the new headliners, the Japanese armada and Czech legend Adam Ondra, four-time world champion,” he explains. But, Mejdi Schalck continues to cling to his “childhood dream”.
