Sport Climbing

Sport climbing, as opposed to alpinism, is a sport testing how fast or how far athletes may ascend vertical walls, usually done indoors on specially designed climbing walls.

The sport’s first contact with the Olympic world came through the Youth Summer Olympics of Buenos Aires 2018, with events for boys and girls. At the 129th International Olympic Committee (IOC) Session in Rio de Janeiro, in 2016, sport climbing was approved as a new sport for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, with a single combined event for both men and women. This combined event included three sport climbing elements: speed, bouldering and lead. At the time of its inclusion on the Olympic Programme for 2020, sport climbing was joined by the new optional sports of karate, skateboarding, and surfing.

Sport climbing remained on the Olympic Programme for Paris 2024, as an optional sport for the host city. This time, there were two events for men and women: a speed event, and a combined bouldering and lead event. Los Angeles 2028 will introduce new changes to the programme, including the permanent addition of skateboarding, sport climbing, and surfing as core Olympic sports, and each climbing element – bouldering, lead, and speed – being contested separately for the first time, resulting in six Olympic sport climbing events (three for men and three for women).

Before Olympic inclusion, sport climbing had already been part of the World Games’ programme on several occasions, always with events for both genders. From 2005-2022, separate lead events were contested at the World Games. The 2017-2022 editions also included bouldering competitions. Speed sport climbing events have been contested continuously at the World Games since 2005, and, despite having its own separate Olympic contest since Paris 2024, the 2025 edition of the World Games still included speed individual events. However, this latest edition also brought the début of single 4 and relay speed competitions to the World Games.

As of 2024, six countries have won two or more medals in Olympic sport climbing, but Slovenia is the only nation with two gold medals. These two golds have been won by the same athlete, Janja Garnbret, who is also the only female climber with two Olympic medals. Austrian Jakob Schubert is the only male climber with two medals, but none gold.

Sport climbing is governed internationally by World Climbing (WC), which separated from the Union internationale des associations d’alpinisme (UIAA) in 2007. The federation was founded as the International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC) on 27 January 2007, and rebranded to its current name on 10 December 2025. As of January 2026, World Climbing has 102 affiliated national federations.

World Championships in sport climbing have been held since 1991 (first edition staged in Frankfurt, then under the wing of the UIAA), and a World Cup circuit has been contested since 2007.