Sport climbing at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics
Made his Olympic debut and was successful
Sport climbing will once again stage a wonderful showdown at the 2024 Paris Olympics
So what exactly is sport climbing?
What changes have occurred in the sport climbing competition system?
What are the focus players worth looking forward to?
Let’s find out together!
(Getty Images)
The 2024 Paris Olympics not only introduces new sports, but the competition formats and events of many sports have also changed. Today, we’re going to cover sport climbing. Two years ago, at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which were postponed to 2021, sport climbing, skateboarding, freestyle BMX and three-person basketball made their Olympic debut and were a great success. A year from now at the Paris Olympics, there will be more athletes competing in climbing and more medals. Of course, the excitement of the game will also be improved accordingly.
What is sport climbing?
Sport climbing is a modern sport derived from traditional rock climbing. It includes three different competition events: bouldering, crux climbing and speed climbing. In these events, athletes climb using permanent anchors attached to artificial walls.
It is believed that rock climbing began in the late 19th century as a form of entertainment. Rock climbing as a competitive sport began in 1985 with the "SportRoccia" event held in Bardonecchia, near Turin, Italy. A year later, the first competition on an artificial climbing wall was held in Vaux-en-Vérin, near Lyon, France.
In the early 1990s, it was stipulated that international climbing competitions could only be held in specially designed competition facilities to protect the natural environment. One of the core values of the sport is environmental protection, and climbers have a responsibility to maintain the environment in which they climb.
Sport climbing is a new era of modern sports and the first World Championships were held in 1991 in Frankfurt, Germany. It has become extremely popular over the past two decades. The development of climbing walls has helped popularize sport climbing, making it accessible to everyone.
Deng Lijuan in the 2022 Climbing World Cup Vilar competition (Getty Images)
Sport climbing and the Olympics
Sport climbing made its Olympic debut at the Buenos Aires Youth Olympic Games in 2018 and made its official debut at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. At the 2024 Paris Olympics, sport climbing will have a different competition format: two sets of medals for each gender. Instead of competing in a single competition combining crux, speed and random climbs, competitors will compete for victory in two disciplines: speed climbing and a combination of crux and speed climbing, each with a There is a gold medal up for grabs.
The 2028 Los Angeles Olympics will also host sport climbing competitions.
Different rock climbing events have different rules:
In the rock climbing competition, athletes need to climb some 4.5-meter-high rock climbing walls within a limited time and as few attempts as possible without using ropes. A player's ranking is determined by the number of difficult problems overcome.
In the difficult rock climbing competition, players need to use ropes to climb a climbing wall with a height of more than 15 meters. The competition time is six minutes, and the route cannot be known in advance. This competition requires players to give full play to their physical and mental abilities.
The speed climbing competition is exciting. It is a one-on-one knockout competition. Players need to race against time on a rock climbing wall with an inclination of 5 degrees and a height of 15 meters. The competition requires players to have the ability to be precise and explosive. The men's world record is 5 seconds (Kiromal Katibin from India) and the women's world record is 6.53 seconds (Aleksandra Miroslaw from Poland).
New competition format for sport climbing at the 2024 Paris Olympics
Sports climbing at the 2024 Paris Olympics will have two medal events for men and two for women, namely an all-around event consisting of rock climbing and difficult rock climbing, and a speed climbing event. By then, Le Bourget Sports Climbing Gym, a sports climbing competition venue located in the north of Paris, will produce 4 Olympic gold medals.
In the all-around event, athletes need to complete rock climbing and difficult rock climbing competitions respectively. The scores of the two projects are then added together for the final ranking. The goal of this competition is to get the highest possible score on the climbing wall. Each time an athlete reaches an area, they will receive corresponding points, and mistakes will result in deductions. The highest score a player can get is 200 points.
In the speed climbing competition, athletes need to strive to reach the top of a 15-meter-high rock climbing wall full of footholds in the shortest time. The speed climbing competition has a preliminary stage. The competition adopts a one-on-one competition format between two players, and the winning player advances. The Paris Olympics will witness the birth of the first speed climbing Olympic champion in Olympic history.
Oriane Bertone said in an interview with Olympics.com during the training session of the French national team: "These two rock climbing events are completely different. The audience can distinguish the rock climbing event they are engaged in by observing the athletes' bodies. The two events The players have completely different styles.”
Rock climbing and difficult rock climbing test the endurance of athletes, while speed climbing is a test of explosive power, and speed is king.
(Jeff Roberson-Pool）
Sport climbers to watch
At the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, Slovenia's Yanga Garnblatt and Spain's Alberto Ginez became the first pair of Olympic champions in the history of sport climbing. Their goal is to prepare for the 2024 Paris Olympic Qualification Tournament and make history again.
Adam Ondra from the Czech Republic, Hoyer and Alex Meigs from Germany, Colin Duffy from the United States, and Jacob Schubert from Austria will be other strong competitors.
In the women's category, the top players in the all-around event include Brooke Labutu of the United States, Keiyo Noguchi of Japan, Fanny Guibert of France and Seo Jae-hyun of South Korea.
Speed climbing will have its own medal at the Paris 2024 Olympics. It is considered the fastest sport in the Olympics. Kiromar Katibin of Indonesia is the world record holder: he can climb a 15-meter-high rock climbing wall in 5.00 seconds. His teammate Vidric Leonardo is another player to watch: his personal best is 5.20 seconds.
On the women's side, Poland's Alexandra Miroslav is another speed climbing specialist. She finished 4th at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, breaking the world record with a time of 6.84 seconds. At the IFSC World Cup Salt Lake City in May 2022, she shortened her time to 6.53 seconds.
(2021 Getty Images)
Sport climbing in China
Rock climbing became an official event at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. At that time, rock climbing only had two gold medals for men's all-around and women's all-around (each including speed competition, rock climbing competition and difficulty competition). The Chinese rock climbing team Song Yiling and Pan Yufei competed, but Due to lack of experience in the competition, the two people, each with their own strengths, failed to achieve anything and both missed the finals. By the 2024 Paris Olympics, the number of gold medals in rock climbing will be doubled to 4, namely all-around for men and women and speed climbing for men and women. Such refinement makes the Chinese rock climbing team determined to create an Olympic Games for Chinese rock climbing at the Le Bourget Climbing Gym in northern Paris. New history.
At the just-concluded Hangzhou Asian Games, there were a total of 6 gold medals in the rock climbing competition. The Chinese rock climbing team won two gold medals in the men's and women's team speed relays. Long Jinbao and Deng Lijuan each won a silver medal in the men's and women's individual speed finals. Pan Yufei He won the bronze medal in the men's individual duathlon final. For China's rock climbing movement, which has only a short development time and strives to speed up its development through Olympic breakthroughs and increase the thickness of its development, it is not easy to achieve such results in this Asian Games.
The Hangzhou Asian Games is a high school entrance exam, and the Paris Olympics is a major exam. Especially for emerging sports like rock climbing that are labeled as "young" and "fashionable", the significance of Chinese rock climbers striving for breakthroughs is not only to compete for gold and silver, but also to enrich the country. The rock climbing industry chain allows more young people to learn about rock climbing and try rock climbing, thereby building a body with stronger core strength.
Source: CCTV News Client
The Road to Qualifying for Sport Climbing at the 2024 Paris Olympics
There will be 20 men and 20 women each competing in the sport climbing all-around competition at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. Each NOC will receive a maximum of 4 seats (2 seats for men and 2 seats for women). Sport climbing Olympic seats are athlete seats, not NOC seats.
The host France will automatically receive 1 seat for men and 1 seat for women. In addition, 1 seat for men and 1 seat for women will be reserved as participating seats. In the next two years, there will be 32 Olympic seats available for bouldering and rock climbing athletes to compete for.
Athletes who wish to qualify for the Paris Olympics must be born no later than January 1, 2008.
In addition to the host seat and participation seats, athletes can obtain seats for the Paris Olympic Sport Climbing All-Around through three channels, namely: the 2023 World Championships, the 2023 Intercontinental Qualifications and the 2024 Olympic Qualification Series.
The top three men's and women's players in the 2023 World Championships will lock in Olympic tickets and must comply with the NOC seat limit requirements.
