Your Guide to the 2024 IFSC World Cup Climbing Competition Calendar

2024 is an Olympic year, and you can tell.

This year’s World Cup circuit is sparse. There are only nine events, featuring five competitions in Boulder and Speed and 6 in Lead, to accommodate the juggernaut of the Olympics and the Olympic Qualification Series. The season is also compact: the first World Cup in Keqiao, China, starts on 9 April, and the final World Cup in Seoul, South Korea, ends on 6 October — less than six months of competition.

Athletes will pick and choose which World Cups they attend in the build-up to the Olympics in August, so we are unlikely to see all of the top athletes at the same event this year. The Olympic Qualifier Series and the Olympics will be our best chances to see all of the best competing at the same event in 2024.

Olympics and Olympic Qualifier Series

The 2024 circuit revolves around the Paris Olympics and the Olympic Qualifier Series.

The Paris 2024 Olympics will take place from 26 July to 11 August 2024, spread across 16 cities in France. The Sport Climbing events will take place from the 5 – 10th to 10th ofst in Le Bouget, approximately six miles (10 km) north of Paris, at the Le Bourget Sport Climbing venue, which will hold up to 6000 people.

The venue will have five purpose-built walls: one indoor wall for warming up and four outdoor walls. The outdoor walls include the Speed, Boulder, and Lead competition walls and another outdoor wall for competitors to warm up on. The indoor facilities will become a climbing centre for Le Bouget, while the other walls could be used for future events.

The Olympic Qualifier Series will happen on 16 – 19 May in Shanghai, China, and 20 – 23 June in Budapest, Hungary, where athletes from Sport Climbing, Skateboarding, BMX freestyle and Breaking will compete for the final Olympic tickets. 160 athletes will compete in Sport Climbing, 96 in Boulder&Lead and 64 in Speed for one of the final 38 tickets. 20 Boulder&Lead tickets and 10 Speed tickets will be assigned in the Series. The additional four host nation tickets and four Universality tickets will be reassigned, subject to country caps, to the next highest-placed athlete in the Series if they are not fulfilled.

The IFSC World Cup 2024 Circuit

This year, the World Cup circuit is shaped by the Olympics and OQS events, with World Cups spread throughout the year to avoid clashes with the Olympic events. There will be 9 World Cup events between 9 April and 6 October, with only 5 competitions in Bolder and Speed and 6 in Lead. This is the 3rd time we have had less than 10 World Cups in a season since 2001. The other seasons were 2020 (1 event) and the last Olympic year in 2021 (8 events).

We will start in China with two events, first in Keqiao (moved from Shanghai) and the second in Wujiang to kick off the season. We then go to Salt Lake City (USA) 2 weeks later for the 6th World Cup in 4 years at the home of USA Climbing.

We return to Innsbruck (Austria) for the now standard Boulder and Lead World Cup just after the final OQS event in Budapest finishes. Only 6 World Cups have hosted Boulder and Lead World Cups at the same time, and Innsbruck will have hosted 4 of them(Chamonix 2001 and Edinburgh 2014 are the other two).

We return to the historic town of Chamonix (France) for the 22nd World Cup hosted there. Chamonix is only 3 competitions behind Kranj (Slovenia), which has hosted 25 World Cups. We then go to Briançon (France), where we will see the new competition wall again, which was finished just in time for last year’s competition.

We then take a break for the Olympics between July and August before returning for a Lead World Cup by the sea in Koper (Slovenia) for the penultimate Lead World Cup.

We then head to Prague for the penultimate Boulder World Cup in late September. Last year’s Prague World Cup saw Dohyun Lee and Oriane Bertone win their first World Cups. Will we see first-time World Cup winners again this year?

We will finish in Seoul (South Korea) less than 6 months after we started in China. Seoul will be the third venue to host all three disciplines at a World Cup. The only other World Cups to host 3 disciplines were Haiyang (China) in 2014 and Chamonix (France) in 2000.

By discipline, these competitions break down to

Villars has hosted Lead World Cups since 2016 but will host the European Continental Championship from 24 August to 1 September. After successfully hosting World Cups in 2022 and 2023, Brixen (Italy) will not be hosting one this year.

World Cup Ranking Scoring

Over the past few years, with the rise of the Olympics, winning the World Cup overall has diminished in status. What was once the highest achievement in competition climbing is a happy consequence of doing well at some World Cups.

Last year, Sorato Anraku won the overall in Lead and Boulder, becoming the first athlete to do so, and he did it in his first-ever season. Other athletes picked their competitions carefully in preparation for the World Championship in Bern. Jessica Pilz made the trip to Wujiang, China, for the final World Cup after qualifying for the Olympics to win the overall Lead World Cup title and become the third Austrian Woman to win the title after Angela Eiter and Johanna Ernst.

The diminished status of the World Cup will be felt more this year than others, with the OQS series and Olympics being the primary focus for many athletes.

For each World Cup in 2024, points are on offer for 1st to 80th place, from 1000 points for 1st place to 1 for 80th. The top ten score

There are only 5 events in the 2024 circuit; every event will count towards the overall ranking.

Where Can You Watch The Events?

You will be able to watch on

• Eurosport Player within Europe,
• ESPN Latin America and the Olympic Channel for Central and South America,
• TVRI in Indonesia,
• JSports in Japan,
• The IFSC YouTube Channel for other countries

You can catch up on the competition 24 hours afterwards on the Olympic Channel.

Paraclimbing World Cup

In 2024, there will be three Paraclimbing World Cup Events:

• 7 to 8 May, Salt Lake City, USA
• 24 to 25 June, Innsbruck, Austria, and
• 27 to 28 September, Arco, Italy

There is no World Championship, as we had a World Championship last year in Bern, Switzerland.

Other events

Other events to watch out for this season outside of the World Cup circuit include:

• 27 – 28 January, Dockmasters 2024
• 9 – 10 March, Studio Bloc Masters
• 16 – 17 March, CWIF
• 24 August – 1 September, European Championship Villars
• In the second half of August, the Youth World Championship will be held in China. The exact dates and location are yet to be announced.

There is also the IFSC European Cup series.

Updated 4 April 2024: Update the Paraclimbing World Cups after the announcement of Arco as the final Paraclimbing World Cup.