Zachary Zhao

Zachary Zhao is a passionate and dedicated competitive speed climber from Victoria, BC, Canada. His climbing journey began over four years ago when his brother introduced him to the sport. At 15, he joined the climbing team at The Boulders Climbing Gym, quickly advancing to the competitive team and participating in numerous provincial competitions. These experiences ignited his passion for speed climbing.

Training full-time under Libor Hroza, the head coach of Team Canada, at The Boulders Climbing Gym, Zachary is also pursuing an Honours degree in Computer Science at UVic. He works part-time as a climbing coach and route setter at both the University of Victoria Climbing Gym and The Boulders Climbing Gym. He enjoys outdoor bouldering but focuses primarily on speed climbing, regularly training alongside Mad Rock athletes like Braeden Bossert and Jack Whitney.

Zachary's achievements include being a member of Team BC for speed climbing and part of Canada's high-performance program. He placed 9th in the 2022 high-performance speed competition and 6th at the 2023 speed climbing nationals. His current personal best is 6.8 seconds on the speed wall, and he is striving to break the sub-6-second mark soon.