Sport climbing has become an official event in the Olympics for the first time at the
Tokyo games in 2021. Here's everything you need to know about the basics of the sport,
its rules, and how it's judged, so you can look like an expert.
It looks like the world has been building to the inclusion of sport climbing in the Olympic
Games for a while now. According to 99 Boulders, nearly four times as many new indoor climbing
gyms popped up in 2017 than in 2009. If that's not enough, the average rate of growth for the indoor
climbing industry was almost 40% higher than that of other gyms and health clubs from 2012 to 2017.
Basically, indoor climbing has become one of the next big things,
and the International Olympic Committee must've recognized it as such since
they included sport climbing in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics for the first time ever.
The success of the sport has been seen in other major competitions as well,
not just at the local bouldering gym. The biggest of these are put on by the
International Federation of Sport Climbing, including the climbing world cup. The IFSC
World Championships actually served as a qualifying event for the upcoming Olympics,
which should tell you how big of a deal the IFSC is in the climbing world.
The sport climbing event at the 2021 Olympic Games will be broken down into three disciplines:
speed climbing, bouldering, and lead.
Speed climbing consists of two athletes racing up identical courses, side-by-side.
The walls they climb are about 15 meters tall, are angled at around 95 degrees, and have identical
holds. You'll want to watch this event closely, as each run is typically completed in seconds.
"The women's world record is 6.99 seconds, and the men's,
5.48 seconds. This run took just 5.52 seconds."
The next sport climbing event is bouldering, and it's more of what you think of when
you imagine a rock wall at your local gym. Bouldering walls are pretty short,
but they're climbed similar to regular climbing walls, minus the rope. Climbers navigate these
walls and all obstacles they present with no previous exposure to the course.
The final event is the lead. In lead climbing, the rope is attached to a device that draws it
up while the athlete ascends. The goal is to get as high as you can on the course
within a six-minute time frame. At the Olympic level, all of the athletes competing should be
able to reach the top, so the real goal is getting there faster than everyone else.
The three disciplines in the 2021 Tokyo Olympic sport climbing competition aren't considered
separate sports. Instead all three events are separate runs of the same competition.
That means each climber will compete in all three events.
The scores will be based on how they place in each of the events. So,
all athletes will be racing to smash the speed event, clobber the bouldering portion,
and reach the highest point of the lead wall in the shortest amount of time.
The calculation that determines total placement in the competition is rather simple. The three
placement scores are multiplied by each other to determine the final. The lowest score takes the
cake. Here's an example: If a climber places first in all three events, their final placement would
be 1x1x1 = 1. That's a guaranteed first-place score, but it's unlikely to happen. If the climber
placed second in speed, fourth in bouldering, and eighth in lead their score would be
2x4x8=64. It's where that 64 ends up sitting among the other total scores that will determine the
final placement. So while the scoring system might not be familiar, it is in the end pretty simple.
Traditional rock climbing and sport climbing
aren't exactly the same thing. Many athletes that participate in one often participate
in the other, but there are plenty of differences to separate the two.
To begin with, traditional climbing is performed on actual rocks, outside, in the
real world. Whereas, sport climbing is typically performed on different artificial climbing walls.
Sport climbing is also faster than traditional rock climbing. Where sport climbers are famous
for their quick and powerful moves, traditional climbers progress slowly up their walls,
focusing on safety rather than speed. The gear and climbing setups used in the two sports are a big
part of that. Traditional climbing involves carrying your gear up the rock and placing your
own climbing devices in the rock wall as you go. Safety has to be a priority since there's
usually no top rope to keep you in the air and no pad to land on if you come crashing down.
Whether they're outdoor or indoor, sport routes are all predesigned and set up
so the climber doesn't have to do any of the initial navigation over a rock face.
This removes a sense of danger and makes the whole sport of rock climbing competition-friendly.
The sports which are included in the Olympics change between each set of games,
and not every sport has the honor of staying part of the games forever. That being said,
not all of the sports appearing in the 2021 games will be included in the following 2024
Paris games. But do you know which event will be? You guessed it; sport climbing.
The International Olympics Committee decides when new sports are added to the games, and this year,
there'll be four of them: karate, skateboarding, surfing, and sport climbing. On top of it,
baseball and softball are both returning to the international competition after being
cut from the games some years back. You want more? Oh, there's more. New events are also
being added in existing sports this year, such as three-on-three basketball and coed relays.
And there's at least one other new sport scheduled for the 2024 Paris Games as well: breakdancing.
The 2024 competition will also keep sport climbing, surfing, and skateboarding, but
if you look on the Paris Games website, you'll see that one sport is missing from the list: karate,
which seems like it might be a one-and-done event. Sport climbing, for now, seems to be holding on.
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