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.
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.
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.
Sport climbing at the 2018 Summer Youth Olympics was held from 7 to 10 October. The competition took place at the Parque Urbano in Puerto Madero, Buenos Aires, Argentina. This marked the debut of the sport at the Youth Olympics.
Competitions in the sport of climbing, governed by the International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC), have been held at two editions of the Summer Olympic Games. First selected as one of the discretionary sports at the 2020 and 2024 games, sport climbing will be inducted as one of the mandatory sports at the 2028 games. Athletes compete in the disciplines of bouldering, lead climbing, and speed climbing. All three were contested as a single event in the 2020 programme, while speed climbing was spun off into its own event in the 2024 programme. Slovenia have won the most gold medals (2), while Austria, Japan, and the United States have won the most medals overall.
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 2018 IFSC Climbing World Championships, the 15th edition, were held in Innsbruck, Austria from 6 to 16 September 2018. The championships consisted of lead, speed, bouldering, paraclimbing, and combined events.
The girls' combined competition at the 2018 Summer Youth Olympics was held at the Parque Urbano on 7 and 9 October.
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 (Ola) Mirosław is a Polish soldier and competition speed climber. She is a two-time women's speed world champion as well as the current women's competition speed climbing world record holder. Mirosław won the gold medal at the 2024 Summer Olympics in the speed climbing event, becoming the first ever Olympic champion in this event.
The men's combined event at the 2020 Summer Olympics was a climbing competition combining three disciplines. It was held from August 3 to August 5, 2021 at the Aomi Urban Sports Park in Tokyo. A total of 20 athletes from 15 nations competed. Sport climbing was one of four new sports added to the Olympic program for 2020.
The women's combined event at the 2020 Summer Olympics was a climbing competition combining three disciplines. It took place between 4 and 6 August 2021 at the Aomi Urban Sports Park in Tokyo. 20 athletes from 15 nations competed. Sport climbing was one of four new sports added to the Olympic program for 2020.
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.
The 2023 IFSC Climbing World Championships, the 18th edition, was held in Bern, Switzerland from 1 to 12 August 2023. The competition climbing championships consisted of lead, speed, bouldering, and boulder & lead combined events, along with the paraclimbing event. The speed and combined events served as the first qualifying event for the 2024 Summer Olympics. PostFinance Arena served as the event venue.
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.
The men's competition climbing combined event at the 2024 Summer Olympics took place from 5 to 9 August 2024 at Le Bourget Sport Climbing Venue in Paris. It marked the second Olympics to feature this event as part of the programme. Competition climbing only received one men's event that combined bouldering, lead, and speed climbing at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. The 2024 Olympic event retained the bouldering and lead climbing disciplines, while speed climbing was spun off into its own event.
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.
Ievgeniia (Jenya) Serikivna Kazbekova is a Ukrainian competition climber. She competed in the women's combined event at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
Aniya Holder is a South African rock climber who specializes in competition climbing, particularly speed climbing. As of 2024, Holder is the reigning female African Continental Champion in women's speed climbing, and she is representing South Africa in that discipline at the 2024 Summer Olympics.
