# Sport climbing at the Summer Olympics

Competition climbing has been held at two editions of the Summer Olympic Games. First selected as one of the discretionary sports at the 2020 and 2024 games, sport climbing will be inducted as one of the mandatory sports at the 2028 games. Athletes compete in the disciplines of bouldering, lead climbing, and speed climbing. All three were contested as a single event in the 2020 programme, while speed climbing was spun off into its own event in the 2024 programme. Slovenia have won the most gold medals (2), while Austria, Japan, and the United States have won the most medals overall (3 each).

## Bid for inclusion

The inclusion was proposed by the International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC) in 2015. In September 2015, competition climbing was included in a shortlist along with baseball, softball, skateboarding, surfing, and karate to be considered for inclusion in the 2020 Summer Olympics; and in June 2016, the executive board of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced that they would support the proposal to include all of the shortlisted sports in the 2020 Games. Finally, on August 3, 2016, all five sports (counting baseball and softball together as one sport) were approved for inclusion in the 2020 Olympic program.

## Competition format

At the 2020 Summer Olympics, two climbing events were contested: men's combined and women's combined. The competition format combined three disciplines of competition climbing: competition speed climbing, competition bouldering, and competition lead climbing. This decision caused widespread criticism in the climbing community.
Members of the IFSC explained that they were only granted one gold medal per gender by the Olympic committee, and they did not want to exclude speed climbing. The IFSC's goal for the 2020 Olympics was primarily to establish climbing and its three disciplines as Olympic sports; changes to the format could follow later. This tactic proved to be successful as they were granted a second set of medals for the 2024 Summer Olympics, where speed climbing will be a separate event from the combined event of lead climbing and bouldering.

## Technical information

For Olympic level sports climbing, route setters are instructed to set lead climbs at a grade of between 8c (5.14b) and 9a (5.14d) for both the men's and women's events. For boulder, men's routes are set between a grade of V10 (7C+) and V14 (8B+), and women's routes between V9 (7C) and V12 (8A+).
NB:
* Lead grades are given in French Numerical and grades in brackets are in American YDS.
* Boulder grade are given in V-Grades and grades in brackets are in Fb-Grades.
* Due to the climbing routes being at the highest level, routes cannot be sufficiently tested, therefore the exact grade of each route is unknown, and may not reflect the target range.

## Summary

| Games | Events | Best nations |
| 2020 Summer Olympics | 2 | Spain (1) Slovenia (1) |
| 2024 Summer Olympics | 4 | Poland (1) |

## Events

Current program :
| Event | 2020 | 2024 | Years |
| Men's combined (s, b, l) | X | | 1 |
| Men's combined (b, l) | | X | 1 |
| Men's speed | | X | 1 |
| Women's combined (s, b, l) | X | | 1 |
| Women's combined (b, l) | | X | 1 |
| Women's speed | | X | 1 |
| Events | 2 | 4 | |

## Participating nations

The following nations have taken part in the Olympic climbing competition. The numbers in the table indicate the number of competitors sent to that year's Olympics.
| Nation | 2020 | 2024 | Years |
| Australia | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Austria | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Belgium | – | 1 | 1 |
| Canada | 2 | – | 1 |
| China | 2 | 7 | 2 |
| Czech Republic | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| France | 4 | 7 | 2 |
| Germany | 2 | 3 | 2 |
| Great Britain | 1 | 4 | 2 |
| Indonesia | – | 4 | 1 |
| Iran | – | 1 | 1 |
| Italy | 3 | 4 | 2 |
| Japan | 4 | 4 | 2 |
| Kazakhstan | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| New Zealand | – | 2 | 1 |
| Poland | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| ROC | 3 | – | 1 |
| Slovenia | 2 | 3 | 2 |
| South Africa | 2 | 4 | 2 |
| South Korea | 2 | 3 | 2 |
| Spain | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Switzerland | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Ukraine | – | 2 | 1 |
| United States | 4 | 8 | 2 |
| Nations | 19 | 22 | 24 |
| Climbers | 40 | 68 | |
| Year | 2020 | 2024 | 2 |

## Olympic records history

| Event | Round | Climber | Nation | Time | Games | Date | Record |
| Men's combined (speed) | Qualification | Bassa Mawem | France | 5.45 | 2020 Tokyo | 3 August 2021 | OR |
| Women's combined (speed) | Qualification | Aleksandra Mirosław | Poland | 6.97 | 2020 Tokyo | 4 August 2021 | OR |
| Women's combined (speed) | Final | Aleksandra Mirosław | Poland | 6.84 | 2020 Tokyo | 6 August 2021 | WR |
| Women's speed | Qualification | Aleksandra Mirosław | Poland | 6.06 | 2024 Paris | 5 August 2024 | WR |
| Men's speed | Bronze medal match | Sam Watson | United States | 4.74 | 2024 Paris | 8 August 2024 | WR |

## Medal table

    As of the women's combined event of 2024 Olympics
| Rank | Nation | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
| 1 | Slovenia (SLO) | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| 2 | Poland (POL) | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| 3 | Great Britain (GBR) | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 3 | Indonesia (INA) | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 3 | Spain (ESP) | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 6 | Japan (JPN) | 0 | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| 6 | United States (USA) | 0 | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| 8 | China (CHN) | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 9 | Austria (AUT) | 0 | 0 | 3 | 3 |
| Totals (9 entries) | Totals (9 entries) | 6 | 6 | 6 | 18 |

## Medalists
### Men's combined

| Games | Gold | Silver | Bronze |
| 2020 Tokyo details | Alberto Ginés López Spain | Nathaniel Coleman United States | Jakob Schubert Austria |
| 2024 Paris details | Toby Roberts Great Britain | Sorato Anraku Japan | Jakob Schubert Austria |

### Men's speed

| Games | Gold | Silver | Bronze |
| 2024 Paris details | Veddriq Leonardo Indonesia | Wu Peng China | Sam Watson United States |

### Women's combined

| Games | Gold | Silver | Bronze |
| 2020 Tokyo details | Janja Garnbret Slovenia | Miho Nonaka Japan | Akiyo Noguchi Japan |
| 2024 Paris details | Janja Garnbret Slovenia | Brooke Raboutou United States | Jessica Pilz Austria |

### Women’s speed

| Games | Gold | Silver | Bronze |
| 2024 Paris details | Aleksandra Mirosław Poland | Deng Lijuan China | Aleksandra Kałucka Poland |