Paris Olympics 2024: What is Sport Climbing? All about the sport, rules, medal winners and more
The Paris Olympics 2024 is a chance for athletes from 206 nations to showcase their skills in a variety of events, and one of the newer additions to that roster is an exciting and modern event, Sport Climbing.
Sport climbing is a variation of competitive rock climbing where the climbers scale rock faces by clipping into pre-drilled bolts. The sport, which has enjoyed a boom in popularity in the last two decades, has three disciplines – speed, bouldering, and lead – each with its own skill set and requirements.
The sport made its debut back in the Tokyo Olympics 2020, where its three forms were combined into a single event. However, for the Paris Olympics 2024, the speed discipline will have its own standalone event, while bouldering and lead will be combined into a single event.
What are the rules of Sport Climbing in Paris Olympics 2024?
The three formats of Sport Climbing each have their goals and objectives. In the speed discipline, the lead climber aims to scale a 49-foot-high wall in as little time as possible. In the boulder discipline, the lead climber attempts to traverse a route filled with several short (about 15-foot-high) boulders in the lowest number of attempts in a given time. The lead sport climbing event is all about endurance, as the climber attempts to scale a 50-foot-high wall in six minutes – the climber with the highest ascent wins.
In every speed climb event, the walls are identical in hold shape and size, as well as boulder placement. As such, it is possible for competitors to memorize the route of their climb and focus on their speeds. In contrast, the bouldering and lead events have unique climbing routes, and the athletes are not given any information about the walls they will climb during the event.
At the Paris Olympics 2024, there will be two medals on offer for the speed sport climbing event and two for the combined event for bouldering and lead sport climbing. The Sport Climbing event in the Paris Olympics 2024 will be held at the Le Bourget climbing site from August 5 to 10, where 68 participants will compete for glory.
Who won the Sport Climbing event in the previous summer Olympics?
Sport Climbing made its Olympic debut four years ago in Tokyo, where 40 climbers – 20 men and 20 women – competed for medals in their respective categories. In the end, Alberto Gines Lopez of Spain won gold in the men’s category, while Slovenia’s Janja Garnbret won gold in the women’s category.
The rest of the winners were: Nathaniel Coleman (USA; silver), Jakob Schubert (Austria; bronze), Miho Nonaka (Japan; silver), and Akiyo Noguchi (Japan; bronze).
How popular is Sport Climbing?
Since its inception in the 1980s in France and Italy, Sport Climbing has enjoyed rising popularity among young people, especially in countries like the USA and Japan. According to the Olympic Association, the sport has over 25 million climbers from 150 countries, and about 39% are below 18 years of age.