Sport Climbing At The 2024 Summer Olympics

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.

Competition climbing at the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad
Venue	Le Bourget Sport Climbing Venue
Dates	5–10 August 2024
No. of events	4
Competitors	68
← 2020 2028 →

The climbing competition will take place at the Le Bourget Sport Climbing Venue in Le Bourget in the Seine-Saint-Denis suburb of Paris. Along with the aquatic centre in Saint Denis, the climbing venue will serve as one of the two sports facilities to be built specifically for the Games.

Since the inclusion of competition climbing in the Olympics for the 2020 Summer Olympics, the International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC) has advocated for three separate medal events: bouldering, lead, and speed; however, climbing in Tokyo 2020 was limited to a single 'combined' format for each gender. The format, along with the scoring system multiplying a placement from each discipline, drew criticisms from athletes, prompting a significant overlap between the boulder-and-lead tandem and speed climbing specialists.

For Paris 2024, the International Olympic Committee decided to award four medals in two separate disciplines per gender, namely, boulder-and-lead combined, and speed.

Speed

Speed climbing will be a standalone event, following the current standard single-elimination competition speed climbing format with athletes climbing side-by-side up a 15-metre wall.

Boulder-and-lead combined

At the 2020 Summer Olympics, points were calculated by multiplying each athlete's position in the lead, boulder, and speed, with the athlete who obtained the lowest total winning. With the speed separated from the combined format for Paris 2024, the IFSC has introduced a system that computes the total score from the lead and boulder phases, with the athlete who garners the most points winning.

The proposed scoring format will be distributed as follows:

• An athlete can earn a maximum of 200 points.
• The maximum points for the boulder phase are 100; each of the four problems is worth up to 25.
  • Athletes earn 5 points for reaching the first zone, 10 for the second, and the full 25 for the top.
  • A tenth of a point (0.1) is deducted for each faltered attempt to reach the next scoring position.
• The maximum points for the lead phase are 100, attained by reaching and clipping the top of a route.
  • An athlete receives points for the final 40 moves of a route.
  • Counting from the top, the last 10 moves earn 4 points each, the previous 10 moves earn 3 each, the previous 10 moves earn 2 each, and the previous 10 moves earn 1 point each.
  • Moves below the final 40 do not collect any points.

This scoring format was first used (with a slightly different point distribution system) in March 2022 at the Sharma Climbing test event in Barcelona, Spain, before becoming internationally available to the sport climbers at two successful meets, the IFSC Climbing European Championships in Munich, Germany (August 2022) and the IFSC Climbing World Cup series in Morioka, Japan (October 2022).

A total of 68 quota places (28 for speed and 40 for the boulder-and-lead combined) are available for Paris 2024, an increment of seventy percent from the Tokyo 2020 roster size (40). Each NOC is entitled to enter a maximum of four climbers (two per gender) in the two separate formats.

The qualification period commenced at the 2023 IFSC Climbing World Championships, which took place between 1 and 12 August in Bern, Switzerland. There, ten spots were awarded to the highest-ranked climbers, respecting the two-athlete NOC limit for each gender: the top three medalists for the boulder-and-lead combined, along with the champion and runner-up for the speed climbing. The remainder of the total quota were awarded to the twenty eligible climbers for the boulder-and-lead combined, and ten for the speed, respectively, at each of the continental qualification tournaments (Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, and Oceania) over a three-month-long period (September to December 2023). Further qualification opportunities will be at a triad of Olympic Qualifier Series events held between March and June 2024.

As the host country, France reserves a single spot for each gender in each discipline if they don't otherwise qualify an athlete. Four more quota places (two per gender) are entitled to the NOCs competing in each category under the Universality rule.

Medal table

  *   Host nation (France)

Events

• Sport climbing at the 2023 Pan American Games