Introduction

Tom O’Halloran (AUS) Age: 28

The darkest of dark horses, Australian Tom O’Halloran has flown so far under the radar you’d virtually need ground penetrating radar to detect his history in the competition climbing world. Yet here we are announcing Tom as an Olympian, so how did this come about? After competing in youth events at a world level back in 2007, Tom turned his immense talents from plastic to the sandstone walls of Australia’s Blue Mountains.

Having started a career and a family, competition climbing was just about the furthest thing from Tom’s mind. Over the last decade, O'Halloran has established himself as the master of the Blue Mountains. He has made four first ascents of 9a sport climbs and bouldered V15. When climbing's debut at the Olympics was announced, the flame of competition was rekindled in O'Halloran’s mind. As a youngster he had dreamed of being an Olympian, yet until now that path had never existed. Now that pathway was in place and he realised that this would be his chance.

Qualification route

IFSC Oceania Continental Championships: 1st place

After only competing in lead in Hachioji, O'Halloran's sole chance to get to Tokyo was via the IFSC Oceania Continental Championships in Sydney, yet with the frustrations and uncertainty of the COVID-19 situation, he almost walked away from his opportunity. Luckily for O'Halloran he persevered and showed fantastic consistency at the event by securing 2nd in each discipline on his way to 1st place and Olympic qualification.

Trivia

O'Halloran is the second parent qualified for Tokyo, being the father of a young daughter called Audrey.

UKC prediction

A lead specialist who also boulders strongly and is consistently in the low 7-second range in Speed, O'Halloran has the potential for a strong result in Tokyo, but against some of the best competition climbers in the world his relative lack of experience will probably count against him. We believe he could trouble the top 10 in the final rankings, but factoring in his inexperience in big competitions we have a prediction of 14^th.