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.
Shauna Coxsey is an English professional rock climber. She is the most successful competition climber in the UK, having won the IFSC Bouldering World Cup Season in both 2016 and 2017. She retired from competition after competing in the 2020 Olympics., and continues to climb at a high level outdoors.
Brooke Raboutou is a French-American professional rock climber who specializes in competition climbing where she competes as part of the US National Team. She won the silver medal in the combined bouldering and lead climbing event at the 2024 Summer Olympics.
Janja Garnbret is a Slovenian professional rock climber who specializes in sport climbing and competition climbing. She has won multiple competition lead climbing and competition bouldering events, two Olympic gold medals, and is widely regarded as the greatest competition climber of all time. In 2021, Garnbret became the first-ever female Olympic gold medalist in climbing, and successfully defended her title in 2024. With two gold medals, she is the most successful Slovenian athlete at the Summer Olympics. She is also the world's first-ever female climber to onsight an 8c (5.14b) graded sport climbing route.
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.
Reza Alipour Shenazandifard is an Iranian competition speed climber from Qazvin. He is nicknamed the "Persian Cheetah".
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.
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.
Molly Caudery is a British athlete who competes in the pole vault event for England and Great Britain. Caudery is the 2024 World Indoor champion. She was also a silver medalist at the 2022 Commonwealth Games and took bronze at the 2024 European Athletics Championships.
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.
Oceania "Oceana" Mackenzie is an Australian rock climber and competition climber who specializes in competition bouldering. She competed in the 2020 Summer Olympics, coming 19th, and has qualified to compete in the 2024 Summer Olympics.
Great Britain, the team of the British Olympic Association (BOA) which represents the United Kingdom, competed at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris from 26 July to 11 August 2024. The delegation of 327 athletes included 172 women and 155 men and featured 73 medallists from previous Games. The team was made up of athletes from the whole United Kingdom including Northern Ireland. Additionally some British overseas territories compete separately from Britain in Olympic competition.
Hamish McArthur is an English professional rock climber and competition climber, who specialises in competition bouldering and competition lead climbing events.
Competition climbing at the 2024 Summer Olympics took place 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 was doubled from two in the previous edition because the boulder-and-lead tandem had been separated from the speed format. Furthermore, the number of climbers increased 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.
Toby Roberts is a British rock climber who specialises in competition climbing and in outdoor sport climbing. He is the youngest British climber to redpoint a 9a (5.14d)-graded sport climbing route, and in 2023 became the first British male climber to qualify for the Olympic Games. He went on to win the gold medal in the men's combined event at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, the first climber from the United Kingdom to become Olympic champion in the sport.
Erin McNeice is an English rock climber who specialises in competition climbing. She represented Great Britain at the 2024 Summer Olympics, finishing fifth in the combined Boulder and Lead competition.
Lauren Mukheibir is a South African rock climber who specializes in competition climbing. As of 2024, Mukheibir is the reigning female African Champion in the women's combined bouldering-and-lead category, and she will represent South Africa in that category at the 2024 Summer Olympics.
Ievgeniia (Jenya) Serikivna Kazbekova is a Ukrainian competition climber, and a member of the 2024 Ukraine Olympic team.
