Competition climbing is a form of regulated rock climbing competition held indoors on purpose-built artificial climbing walls. The three competition climbing disciplines are lead climbing, bouldering, and speed climbing. The result of multiple disciplines can be used in a "combined" format to determine an all-round winner. Competition climbing is sometimes called "sport climbing", which is the name given to pre-bolted lead climbing.
Speed climbing is a climbing discipline in which speed is the ultimate goal. Speed climbing is done on rocks, walls and poles and is only recommended for highly skilled and experienced climbers.
The IFSC Climbing World Championships are the biennial 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. The first event was organized in Frankfurt in 1991.
USA Climbing is the national governing body of the sport of competition climbing in the United States. As a 501(c)3 non-profit, they promote Sport Climbing which comprises three competition disciplines: bouldering, lead climbing, and speed climbing, in elite, youth and collegiate formats.
Brooke Raboutou is an American professional rock climber who specializes in competition climbing where she competes as part of the US National Team. She competed at the 2020 Summer Olympic Games and represents the United States at IFSC Climbing World Cups.
Janja Garnbret is a Slovenian professional rock climber who specializes in sport climbing and competition climbing, and who has won multiple competition lead climbing and competition bouldering events. In 2021, she became the first-ever female Olympic gold medalist in climbing and is widely regarded as one of the greatest competition climbers of all time. She is also the world's first-ever female climber to onsight an 8c (5.14b) graded sport climbing route. As of 2023, Garnbret had won the most IFSC gold medals of any competition climber in history.
Competition climbing made its Olympic debut at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan. Two events were held, one each for men and women. The format controversially consisted of one combined event with three disciplines: lead climbing, speed climbing and bouldering. The medals were determined based on best performance across all three disciplines. This format was previously tested at the 2018 Summer Youth Olympics. The Olympic code for sports climbing is CLB.
Jakob Schubert is an Austrian professional rock climber, specializing in competition climbing, sport climbing, and bouldering. He was four times World Champion and three times World Cup winner in lead climbing. In August 2021, he won bronze at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. As of the end of 2022, Schubert had won the most men's IFSC gold medals of any male competition climber in history. In addition to competition climbing, Schubert is one of only a handful of climbers in the world to have redpointed 9c (5.15d) routes.
Tomoa Narasaki is a Japanese professional rock climber who specializes in bouldering and competition bouldering.
Miho Nonaka is a Japanese competition climber who specializes in competition bouldering. She competed at the 2020 Summer Olympics, in Women's combined, winning a silver medal.
The 2019 IFSC Climbing World Cup was held in 12 locations. Bouldering, lead and speed competitions were each held in 6 locations. The season began on 5 April in Meiringen, Switzerland with the first bouldering competition in the season, and concluded on 27 October in Inzai, Japan, with the last lead climbing competition in the season.
This is a ranking of total career IFSC victories obtained in the annual IFSC Climbing World Cup and the biennial IFSC Climbing World Championships, which were organized by the International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation, and the International Federation of Sport Climbing.
The 2019 IFSC Climbing World Championships, the 16th edition, were held in Hachioji, Japan from 11 to 21 August 2019. The championships consisted of lead, speed, bouldering, and combined events. The paraclimbing event was held separately from 16 to 17 July in Briançon, France. The combined event also served as an Olympic qualifying event for the 2020 Summer Olympics.
Aleksandra Mirosław is a Polish competition speed climber and a two-time women's speed world champion as well as the current women's competition speed climbing world record holder.
Petra Klingler is a Swiss rock climber who specializes in competition climbing. Known as a versatile climber, she competes in a wide range of competitive events, including competition bouldering, competition speed climbing, competition lead climbing, and also competition ice climbing.
Ai Mori is a Japanese professional rock climber who specializes in competition climbing and the disciplines of competition lead climbing and competition bouldering. At the 2019 IFSC Climbing World Championships, she became the youngest Japanese athlete to finish in a podium place in the competition, third in lead. She has won Japan Cup titles in both bouldering and lead disciplines and has multiple IFSC Climbing World Cup podium finishes, including three gold medals in World Cup events in the 2022 season. At the 2023 IFSC Climbing World Championships, Mori won the gold medal in lead, becoming the first Japanese athlete to win a World Championships lead title.
Natalia Grossman is an American professional rock climber who specializes in competition climbing. She represents the United States at IFSC Climbing World Cup in competition bouldering and competition lead climbing. She won gold and silver at the 2021 IFSC Climbing World Championships, and has 19 podium finishes at World Cup events, including nine golds. In October 2023, Grossman qualified for the 2024 Olympic games in Paris by winning the boulder & lead combined competition at the 2023 Pan American Games.
Colin Duffy is an American professional rock climber who specializes in competition climbing. At age 16, he became the youngest climber to qualify to compete at the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo, and the second American male climber to do so, after winning the 2020 IFSC Pan American Championships in March 2020.
Competition climbing at the 2024 Summer Olympics is scheduled to run from 5 to 10 August at Le Bourget Sport Climbing Venue in Saint-Denis, returning to the program for the second time since the sport's official debut three years earlier in Tokyo 2020. The total number of medal events will double from two in the previous edition, separating the boulder-and-lead tandem from the speed format. Furthermore, Paris 2024 will witness a significant rise in the number of sport climbers competing contrary to Tokyo 2020, expanding the roster size from 40 to 68.
In qualifying for the 2024 Summer Olympics, a total of 68 climbers, with an equal distribution between men and women, will compete across two separate competition climbing disciplines at these Games for the first time, namely: a unique competition bouldering-and-competition lead climbing combined event, and a separate competition speed climbing event.
