IFSC Climbing World Championships

Not to be confused with IFSC Climbing World Cup.

For similar championships for climbers under age of 20, see IFSC Climbing World Youth Championships.

IFSC Climbing World Championships
Seasons
1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2012 2014 2016 2018 2019 2021 2023
Disciplines
Lead Bouldering Speed Combined
Most gold medals
Janja Garnbret (8)

The IFSC Climbing World Championships are the biennial (i.e. held once every two years) world championship event for competition climbing that is organized by the International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC). This event determines the male and female world champions in the three disciplines of competition climbing: competition lead climbing, competition bouldering, and competition speed climbing. Since 2012, a combined ranking is also determined, for climbers competing in all disciplines, and additional medals are awarded based on that ranking. ^{[1] [2] [3] [4]} The first event was organized in Frankfurt in 1991.

History

Creation and organizers

In 1991, the Union Internationale des Associations d'Alpinisme (UIAA) organized the competition climbing championships. The International Council for Competition Climbing (ICC) was created in 1997 as an internal body of the UIAA to take charge of competition climbing. ^[5]

In 2007, the independent IFSC was created as a continuation of the ICC to govern competition climbing.

Events

The present format has four disciplines: lead, speed, bouldering, and combined.

The first championships had two events: lead and speed. Bouldering was added in 2001.

In 2012, 2014 and 2016, a combined ranking (sometimes also called overall ranking) was computed for climbers participating in all of the three events. ^{[1] [2] [3]} In 2018, a specific combined event was included which the six climbers with highest overall ranking ^{[6] [7]} were invited to enter. The combined event requires athletes to compete in all three disciplines, and they receive a single combined score based on all three results. Scores achieved in single-discipline events are not relevant to the combined score, and there are no awards for any one part of the combined event. The 2018 combined event tested the new Olympic Games format, which was used at the first appearance of climbing at the Olympics in 2020. In 2019 the Combined competition was held again with the best eight men's and women's athletes receiving invitations to the 2020 Olympics.

In 2011, the IFSC Paraclimbing World Championships were established. The event is usually held alongside the open class competition. Para athletes compete in lead only, except for 2011 when a speed climbing competition was held as well.

Years

The World Championships are held every two years. Twice, the cycle has been moved to the other year and in those cases this was done by holding the next championship one year earlier. In 2012 the World Championships were shifted to even years to avoid interference with the 2013 World Games climbing event and to give a supplementary opportunity to demonstrate the sport for a possible integration into the 2020 Olympic Games. In 2019 the World Championships were again held one year early, to now allow the Championships to be the year before each Olympics to operate as a qualifier event.^{[ citation needed ]}

Championships

Edition	Year	Location	Date(s)	Disciplines						Athletes	Nations	Website	Notes
				Event	L	S	B	C	Para
1	1991	Frankfurt	1–2 October	2	X	X	-	-	-	110	22		[8]
2	1993	Innsbruck	29–30 April	2	X	X	-	-	-	127	23		[9]
3	1995	Geneva	5–6 May	2	X	X	-	-	-	135	24		[10]
4	1997	Paris	31 January–1 February	2	X	X	-	-	-	153	26		[11]
5	1999	Birmingham	2–3 December	2	X	X	-	-	-	180	30		[12]
6	2001	Winterthur	5–8 September	3	X	X	X	-	-	198	25		[13]
7	2003	Chamonix	9–13 July	3	X	X	X	-	-	241	34		[14]
8	2005	Munich	1–5 July	3	X	X	X	-	-	318	51		[15]
9	2007	Avilés	17–23 September	3	X	X	X	-	-	302	50		[16]
10	2009	Xining	30 June – 5 July	4	X	X	X	-	-	219	44		[17]
11	2011	Arco	15–24 July	4	X	X	X	-	X	374	56		[18]
12	2012	Paris	12–16 September	5	X	X	X	X	X	331	56		[19] [1]
13	2014	Munich	21–23 August	1	-	-	X	-	-	509	52		[20] [2]
		Gijón	8–14 September	4	X	X	-	X	X
14	2016	Paris	14–18 September	5	X	X	X	X	X	533	53		[21] [3] [22]
15	2018	Innsbruck	6–16 September	5	X	X	X	X	X	834	58		[23] [4]
16	2019	Briançon	16–17 July	1	-	-	-	-	X
		Hachioji	11–21 August	4	X	X	X	X	-	253	39	Archived 20 April 2021 at the Wayback Machine	[24] [25]
17	2021	Moscow	15–21 September	5	X	X	X	X	X				[26]
18	2023	Bern	1–12 August	5	X	X	X	X	X
19	2025	Seoul [27]		5	X	X	X	X	X
20	2027	Brno [28]		5	X	X	X	X	X

Medals

As of 2023 IFSC Climbing World Championships (excluding paraclimbing medals)

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Russia	16	14	23	53
2	Austria	15	7	8	30
3	France	14	17	17	48
4	Ukraine	11	7	5	23
5	Slovenia	9	7	5	21
6	Czech Republic	6	10	4	20
7	Japan	6	9	8	23
8	Italy	6	1	2	9
9	Poland	5	4	9	18
10	China	5	4	1	10
11	Spain	4	5	0	9
12	United States	3	9	4	16
13	South Korea	3	5	4	12
14	Switzerland	3	1	5	9
15	Canada	3	1	0	4
16	Belgium	2	6	0	8
17	Germany	2	5	9	16
18	Iran	1	1	2	4
19	Indonesia	1	0	1	2
20	Kazakhstan	0	1	3	4
21	Venezuela	0	1	0	1
22	Great Britain	0	0	4	4
23	Serbia	0	0	2	2
24	Netherlands	0	0	1	1
Totals (24 entries)		115	115	117	347

Note 1: share medals in 2007 IFSC Climbing World Championships

Note 2: one silver medal in 2021 IFSC Climbing World Championships for Climbing Federation of Russia

Men's results

Lead

Year	Gold	Silver	Bronze
1991	François Legrand	Yuji Hirayama	Guido Köstermeyer  [ de ]
1993	François Legrand (2)	Stefan Glowacz	Yuji Hirayama
1995	François Legrand (3)	Arnaud Petit  [ fr ]	Elie Chevieux  [ de ]
1997	François Petit	Chris Sharma	François Legrand
1999	Bernardino Lagni  [ es ]	Yuji Hirayama	Maksym Petrenko
2001	Gérôme Pouvreau  [ fr ]	Tomáš Mrázek	François Petit
2003	Tomáš Mrázek	Patxi Usobiaga	David Caude  [ fr ]
2005	Tomáš Mrázek (2)	Patxi Usobiaga	Alexandre Chabot
2007	Ramón Julián	Patxi Usobiaga	Cédric Lachat  [ fr ] Tomáš Mrázek Jorg Verhoeven  [ cs ]
2009	Patxi Usobiaga	Adam Ondra	David Lama
2011	Ramón Julián (2)	Jakob Schubert	Adam Ondra
2012	Jakob Schubert	Sean McColl	Adam Ondra
2014	Adam Ondra	Ramón Julián	Sachi Amma
2016	Adam Ondra (2)	Jakob Schubert	Gautier Supper  [ fr ]
2018	Jakob Schubert (2)	Adam Ondra	Alexander Megos
2019	Adam Ondra (3)	Alexander Megos	Jakob Schubert
2021	Jakob Schubert (3)	Luka Potočar	Hamish McArthur
2023	Jakob Schubert (4)	Sorato Anraku	Alexander Megos

Speed

Year	Gold	Silver	Bronze
1991	Hans Florine	Jacky Godoffe  [ cs ]	Kairat Rachmetov  [ cs ]
1993	Vladimir Netsvetaïev  [ fr ]	Serik Kazbekov  [ cs ]	Yevgen Kryvosheytsev  [ cs ]
1995	Andrey Vedenmeer  [ fr ]	Milan Benian  [ cs ]	Vladimir Netsvetaïev  [ fr ]
1997	Daniel Andrada  [ es ]	Yevgen Kryvosheytsev  [ cs ]	Dmitrij Byčkov  [ cs ]
1999	Vladimir Zakharov  [ es ]	Vladimir Netsvetaïev  [ fr ]	Alexey Gadeev
2001	Maksym Styenkovyy	Vladimir Zakharov  [ es ]	Tomasz Oleksy  [ pl ]
2003	Maksym Styenkovyy (2)	Tomasz Oleksy  [ pl ]	Alexandr Pechekhonov  [ fr ]
2005	Evgeny Vaitcekhovsky	Maksym Styenkovyy	Sergey Sinitsyn  [ de ]
2007	Zhong Qixin	Manuel Escobar  [ cs ]	Sergey Sinitsyn  [ de ]
2009 (10 m)	Zhong Qixin (2)	Alexandr Nigmatulin  [ cs ]	Ivan Novikov  [ es ]
2009 (15 m) [29]	Zhong Qixin (3)	Sergey Abdrakhmanov  [ pl ]	Ning Zhang
2011	Zhong Qixin (4)	Stanislav Kokorin	Danyil Boldyrev
2012	Zhong Qixin (5)	Libor Hroza  [ cs ]	Dmitry Timofeev  [ cs ]
2014	Danyil Boldyrev	Stanislav Kokorin	Reza Alipour
2016	Marcin Dzieński	Reza Alipour	Alexandr Shikov  [ es ]
2018	Reza Alipour	Bassa Mawem	Stanislav Kokorin
2019	Ludovico Fossali	Jan Kříž  [ cs ]	Stanislav Kokorin
2021	Danyil Boldyrev (2)	Erik Noya Cardona	Noah Bratschi
2023	Matteo Zurloni	Long Jinbao	Rahmad Adi Mulyono

Bouldering

Year	Gold	Silver	Bronze
2001	Mauro Calibani  [ it ]	Frédéric Tuscan  [ cs ]	Christian Core
2003	Christian Core	Jérôme Meyer	Tomasz Oleksy  [ pl ]
2005	Salavat Rachmetov  [ cs ]	Kilian Fischhuber	Gérôme Pouvreau  [ fr ]
2007	Dmitri Sarafutdinov	Martin Stráník  [ cs ]	Cédric Lachat  [ fr ]
2009	Alexey Rubtsov	Rustam Gelmanov  [ cs ]	David Barrans  [ pl ]
2011	Dmitri Sarafutdinov (2)	Adam Ondra	Rustam Gelmanov  [ cs ]
2012	Dmitri Sarafutdinov (3)	Kilian Fischhuber	Rustam Gelmanov  [ cs ]
2014	Adam Ondra	Jernej Kruder	Jan Hojer
2016	Tomoa Narasaki	Adam Ondra	Manuel Cornu
2018	Kai Harada	Jongwon Chon	Gregor Vezonik  [ cs ]
2019	Tomoa Narasaki (2)	Jakob Schubert	Yannick Flohé
2021	Kokoro Fujii	Tomoa Narasaki	Manuel Cornu
2023	Mickael Mawem	Mejdi Schalck	Lee Do-hyun

Combined

Year	Gold	Silver	Bronze
2012 [1]	Sean McColl	Thomas Tauporn  [ de ]	Cédric Lachat  [ fr ]
2014 [2]	Sean McColl (2)	Jan Hojer	Alban Levier  [ es ]
2016 [3] [22]	Sean McColl (3)	Manuel Cornu	David Firnenburg  [ cs ]
2018 [4]	Jakob Schubert	Adam Ondra	Jan Hojer
2019	Tomoa Narasaki	Jakob Schubert	Rishat Khaibullin
2021	Yannick Flohé	Philipp Martin	Fedir Samoilov
2023	Jakob Schubert (2)	Colin Duffy	Tomoa Narasaki

Women's Results

Lead

Year	Gold	Silver	Bronze
1991	Susi Good  [ fr ]	Isabelle Patissier	Robyn Erbesfield
1993	Susi Good  [ fr ] (2)	Robyn Erbesfield	Isabelle Patissier
1995	Robyn Erbesfield	Laurence Guyon  [ fr ]	Liv Sansoz
1997	Liv Sansoz	Muriel Sarkany	Marietta Uhden  [ de ]
1999	Liv Sansoz (2)	Muriel Sarkany	Yelena Ovchinnikova  [ cs ]
2001	Martina Čufar  [ fr ]	Muriel Sarkany	Chloé Minoret  [ fr ]
2003	Muriel Sarkany	Emilie Pouget  [ pl ]	Sandrine Levet
2005	Angela Eiter	Emily Harrington	Akiyo Noguchi
2007	Angela Eiter (2)	Muriel Sarkany	Maja Vidmar
2009	Johanna Ernst	Kim Ja-in	Maja Vidmar
2011	Angela Eiter (3)	Kim Ja-in	Magdalena Röck  [ cs ]
2012	Angela Eiter (4)	Kim Ja-in	Johanna Ernst
2014	Kim Ja-in	Mina Markovič	Magdalena Röck  [ cs ]
2016	Janja Garnbret	Anak Verhoeven	Mina Markovič
2018	Jessica Pilz	Janja Garnbret	Kim Ja-in
2019	Janja Garnbret (2)	Mia Krampl	Ai Mori
2021	Seo Chae-hyun	Natalia Grossman	Laura Rogora
2023	Ai Mori	Janja Garnbret	Seo Chae-hyun

Speed

Year	Gold	Silver	Bronze
1991	Isabelle Dorsimond  [ fr ]	Agnès Brard  [ es ]	Venera Chereshneva  [ cs ]
1993	Olga Bibik  [ fr ]	Isabelle Dorsimond  [ fr ]	Renata Piszczek  [ pl ]
1995	Natalie Richer  [ fr ]	Cécile Avezou  [ fr ]	Renata Piszczek  [ pl ]
1997	Tatiana Ruyga	Irina Zaytseva	Olga Bibik  [ fr ]
1999	Olga Zakharova	Olena Ryepko  [ fr ]	Natalia Novikova  [ es ]
2001	Olena Ryepko  [ fr ]	Maya Piratinskaya	Svetlana Sutkina
2003	Olena Ryepko  [ fr ] (2)	Tatiana Ruyga	Valentina Yurina
2005	Olena Ryepko  [ fr ] (3)	Valentina Yurina	Edyta Ropek  [ pl ]
2007	Tatiana Ruyga (2)	Edyta Ropek  [ pl ]	Valentina Yurina
2009 (10 m)	He Cuilian	He Cuifang	Li Chunhua
2009 (15 m)	He Cuilian (2)	He Cuifang	Li Chunhua
2011	Maria Krasavina	Anna Tsyganova	Tamara Kuznetsova
2012	Yulia Levochkina	Iuliia Kaplina	Natalia Titova
2014	Alina Gaidamakina	Klaudia Buczek	Aleksandra Rudzińska (later with last name: Mirosław)
2016	Anna Tsyganova	Anouck Jaubert	Iuliia Kaplina
2018	Aleksandra Mirosław	Anna Brożek	Maria Krasavina
2019	Aleksandra Mirosław (2)	Di Niu	Anouck Jaubert
2021	Natalia Kałucka	Iuliia Kaplina	Aleksandra Mirosław
2023	Desak Made Rita Kusuma Dewi	Emma Hunt	Aleksandra Mirosław

Bouldering

Year	Gold	Silver	Bronze
2001	Myriam Motteau  [ fr ]	Sandrine Levet	Nataliya Perlova  [ cs ]
2003	Sandrine Levet	Nataliya Perlova  [ cs ]	Fanny Rogeaux  [ es ]
2005	Olga Shalagina  [ fr ]	Julija Abramčuková  [ cs ]	Věra Kotasová-Kostruhová  [ cs ]
2007	Anna Stöhr	Akiyo Noguchi	Olga Bibik
2009	Julija Abramčuková  [ cs ]	Olga Shalagina  [ fr ]	Anna Stöhr
2011	Anna Stöhr (2)	Sasha DiGiulian	Juliane Wurm  [ de ]
2012	Mélanie Sandoz  [ fr ]	Olga Yakovleva  [ cs ]	Anna Stöhr
2014	Juliane Wurm  [ de ]	Alex Puccio	Akiyo Noguchi
2016	Petra Klingler	Miho Nonaka	Akiyo Noguchi
2018	Janja Garnbret	Akiyo Noguchi	Staša Gejo
2019	Janja Garnbret (2)	Akiyo Noguchi	Shauna Coxsey
2021	Natalia Grossman	Camilla Moroni  [ es ]	Staša Gejo
2023	Janja Garnbret (3)	Oriane Bertone	Brooke Raboutou

Combined

Year	Gold	Silver	Bronze
2012	Kim Ja-in	Cécile Avezou  [ fr ]	Petra Klingler
2014 [2]	Charlotte Durif  [ fr ]	Petra Klingler	Mina Markovič
2016 [3] [22]	Jelena Krasovská  [ cs ]	Claire Buhrfeind  [ es ]	Charlotte Durif  [ fr ]
2018 [4]	Janja Garnbret	Sa Sol  [ de ]	Jessica Pilz
2019	Janja Garnbret (2)	Akiyo Noguchi	Shauna Coxsey
2021	Jessica Pilz	Mia Krampl	Elnaz Rekabi
2023	Janja Garnbret (3)	Jessica Pilz	Ai Mori

See also

• IFSC Climbing World Cup
• IFSC Paraclimbing World Championships
• IFSC Climbing World Youth Championships
• IFSC Climbing European Championships
• IFSC Climbing Asian Championships
• List of best IFSC results
• UIAA Ice Climbing World Championships

References

1. "IFSC Climbing World Championship 2012 – Overall rankings" (PDF). [e-mail]. Archived (PDF) from the original on 17 September 2018. Retrieved 17 September 2018.
2. "IFSC Climbing World Championship 2014 – Combined rankings". IFSC. Archived from the original on 18 September 2018. Retrieved 17 September 2018.
3. "IFSC Climbing World Championship 2016 – Overall rankings" (PDF). IFSC. Archived (PDF) from the original on 6 July 2017. Retrieved 17 September 2018.
4. "IFSC Climbing World Championship 2018 – Combined results". IFSC. Retrieved 17 September 2018.
5. "Climbing Competitions' History". ifsc-climbing.org. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 12 May 2013.
6. "2018 World Championships – Combined general result – Men". IFSC. Retrieved 21 September 2018.
7. "2018 World Championships – Combined general result – Women". IFSC. Retrieved 21 September 2018.
8. "UIAA World Championship – Frankfurt 1991". ifsc-climbing.org. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 17 May 2013.
9. "UIAA World Championship – Innsbruck 1993". ifsc-climbing.org. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 17 May 2013.
10. "UIAA World Championship – Genève 1995". ifsc-climbing.org. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 17 May 2013.
11. "UIAA World Championship – Paris 1997". ifsc-climbing.org. Archived from the original on 27 September 2016. Retrieved 17 May 2013.
12. "UIAA World Championship – Birmingham (GBR) 1999". ifsc-climbing.org. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 17 May 2013.
13. "UIAA World Championship – Winterthur (SUI) 2001". ifsc-climbing.org. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 17 May 2013.
14. "UIAA Worldchampionship – Chamonix (FRA) 2003". ifsc-climbing.org. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 17 May 2013.
15. "UIAA World Championship – Munich (GER) 2005". ifsc-climbing.org. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 17 May 2013.
16. "IFSC Climbing World Championship (L + B + S) – Aviles (ESP) 2007". ifsc-climbing.org. Archived from the original on 27 September 2016. Retrieved 17 May 2013.
17. "IFSC Climbing World Championships – Qinghai (CHN) 2009". ifsc-climbing.org. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 17 May 2013.
18. "IFSC Climbing World Championships – Arco (ITA) 2011". ifsc-climbing.org. Archived from the original on 1 June 2015. Retrieved 17 May 2013.
19. "IFSC Climbing World Championship – Paris (FRA) 2012". ifsc-climbing.org. Archived from the original on 5 March 2014. Retrieved 17 May 2013.
20. "World Championships".
21. "IFSC Climbing World Championship 2016". IFSC. Retrieved 17 September 2018.
22. "IFSC Climbing World Championship 2016 – Overall rankings" (PDF). [e-mail]. Archived (PDF) from the original on 19 October 2016. Retrieved 17 September 2018.
23. "IFSC Climbing World Championship 2018". IFSC. Retrieved 17 September 2018.
24. "IFSC Climbing World Championships – Hachioji (JPN) 2019". ifsc-climbing.org. Retrieved 25 August 2019.
25. "IFSC Climbing World Championships Combined – Hachioji (JPN) 2019". ifsc-climbing.org. Retrieved 25 August 2019.
26. "IFSC Plenary Assembly 2019 – A full recap". IFSC. 16 March 2019. Retrieved 17 May 2019.
27. "2025 Climbing World Championships to be held in Seoul". IFSC. 1 April 2023. Retrieved 18 June 2025.
28. "2027 World Championships to be held in Brno, Czechia". IFSC. 11 April 2025. Archived from the original on 19 August 2013. Retrieved 18 June 2025.
29. "IFSC Climbing World Championships – Qinghai (CHN) 2009 – 15 m Speed".

External links

• "Calendar of IFSC competitions". www.ifsc-climbing.org.
• "IFSC Rules". www.ifsc-climbing.org.