Climbing and the Olympics: 2024 Summer Games

 Climbing and the Olympics: 2024 Summer Games

By Zoltán Ágoston

The sport of indoor rock climbing made its Olympic debut in the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, Japan (postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic).

Long before climbing became a competitive - let alone an Olympic - sport, it was an outdoor activity enjoyed by small groups of outdoor enthusiasts and mountain climbers. Starting in the 1950s and 1960s, outdoor climbers began to experiment with creating artificial indoor climbing walls as a way to train in the off-season, but it was not until the late 1980s that the first dedicated indoor rock climbing gym opened in the United States, in Bend, Oregon. (Reference: https://www.climbing.com/places/history-of-climbing-gym/) In the nearly 40 years since that time, indoor climbing has grown exponentially and evolved into a popular indoor sport with a highly developed national and international competition circuit. The competitive sport is organized around three disciplines: (1) sport (or lead) climbing, in which climbers ascend high walls using ropes and anchors for protection; (2) bouldering, which features highly technical short climbs on lower walls that do not require ropes; and (3) speed climbing, in which climbers race in pairs up a vertical wall on a standardized course. On the international circuit, climbers belong to their respective national team, however each climber competes individually in one or more of these three disciplines. 

When climbing was first accepted to the Olympic games for Tokyo 2020, the Olympic Committee decided that all athletes would be required to compete in all three disciplines. This ‘fully combined format’ was controversial because climbers who specialize in sport climbing and bouldering do not usually overlap with those who specialize in speed climbing. Many sport and bouldering athletes were unhappy that speed climbing was a mandatory discipline. Some had to learn speed climbing for the first time just to qualify for the Olympics. Meanwhile, speed climbing specialists found it hard to qualify at all, since they may have not touched a competition climb in lead or bouldering in years. The International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC) does not organize their annual World Cup series in the ‘fully combined format,’ but rather with sport, boulder, and speed as three separate categories! IFSC also hosted multiple Olympic qualifier events for the games that used yet another organizational method: boulder/sport (grouped) as one category and speed as another category. This organization makes a bit more sense, because sport and boulder have much more overlap in terms of the required skill set and the athletes who compete.

Many in the climbing community were frustrated by the fully combined format in Tokyo, because it does not showcase the best of each discipline. In response, the 2024 Olympic committee decided to change the organization to that of the IFSC’s Olympic qualifiers (two categories, sport/boulder and speed). This means that some of the truly best, strongest rock climbers in the world should be seen on the podium in Paris this summer, without being set back by having to learn how to speed climb. The world’s best speed climbers will now also have a shot to compete and be recognized at the Olympic level. 

In my view, this change is a crucial improvement, but frankly, I believe that each discipline within the sport of competition climbing should be separate (the way it is in IFSC’s regular World Cup circuit). This is not to say that an athlete who is psyched in multiple disciplines should be confined to only their chosen area of specialty – no way! I only say this because I know plenty of talented athletes who love one discipline but couldn’t really care for the others. One can definitely see athletes on the World Cup circuit who only pop up in one discipline – that’s their thing. Bottom line: While 2024 is an improvement over 2020, I believe that in the long run the Olympics will find more talented sport, boulder, and speed climbers if they allow each discipline to function as a separate competition.

Location: Alexandria, VA, USA

Popular posts from this blog

No Place at All

No Place at All (a fictional parable)      One day many years ago as I stood outside the Metro Center station, I was approached by a stranger. He was a boy about my age, not more than fifteen.      “Excuse me,” he said, “I’m lost. Can you point me to the nearest Metro station?”      I was astonished since we were standing right in front of a Metro station – and not just any station, the central station of the city. “Dude, are you ok?” I responded. “This is the entrance to the metro. You’re standing right in front of it!”      “Bear with me,” he said. “I’m not from here. I come from a small town in rural, and the whole city just seems overwhelming. Everything looks the same – concrete and glass everywhere. It’s hectic, with people and cars and bikes and busses coming at me at every corner. Even at night it’s light, yet shadows lurk everywhere and I am afraid. We hear stories of gangs and criminals. Where I’m from there’s peace a...
Read more

Thought for the Day

“Virtue is destroyed through the same activities through which we acquire it, and the same is true for practical skills. People become both good and bad kitharists from playing the kithara, and similarly for house builders and all the rest. It is from building well that people become good house builders, and from building badly that they become bad ones…. The same goes for the virtues. From of transactions with others, for example, some of use become just, and others unjust. From the way we act in frightening situation, as we get used to feeling fear or confidence, some of us become braved while others become cowards. So too in matters of appetites and anger, some people develop self-discipline and an even temper, while others become self-indulgent and hot tempered – depending on how they conduct themselves in those situations.” From Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics Here, Aristotle is saying that just doing something a lot does not mean you will be good at it. You have to do it a lot a...
Read more

The Power of Journaling

Lately, I have been journaling a lot, and I think you should too. To talk about journaling, I want to first offer a note on visualization that will add context to my thoughts. Visualization is the practice of forming clear and detailed mental images of your goals to help align your mindset with the outcomes you want to achieve. Here’s another idea to build on: Warren Buffett famously promoted his 5/25 rule. It states that you should list your top 25 goals, select the 5 that matter the most, and then avoid the remaining 20 at all costs to stay focused and drive success. If you journal daily, you are naturally doing both of these things at once – whether you realize it or not. Every day that you journal, every page that you fill out, every idea or success that you jot down, every frustration you lament in your writings, you are slowly creating a comprehensive worldview and constructing your dream life.  Journaling gives form to your thoughts on a large scale. If you journal for long...
Read more