Welcome to Behind the Wall, your weekly digest on what is happening in the climbing competition world.
This week, we examine the impact of the new 2025 Quota system from the IFSC.
We recap the news from last week, including the results from Dockmasters and the British Bouldering Championship last weekend.
I share my favourite content, including an interview with Toby Roberts on the Careless Talk Podcast and an interview with Hayato Nakamura, a Japanese professional climber looking to join the National Team.
As usual, I will recap where you can buy tickets for upcoming international competitions and what competitions to watch this week.
The 2025 Quota Changes
In 2025, the IFSC is changing the number of spots each country is allocated for each World Cup. Japan is the country most impacted, losing 11 spots compared to the rules from 2024.
For each World Cup season, each country gets a fixed number of quota spots for each competition. The number of spots depends on the performance of athletes in the previous year using the Continuously Updated World Ranking (CUWR).
The CUWR counts points earned at World Cups, World Championships, Continental Championships, Olympic Qualifier events and the Olympics, weighted by their status.
Quota spots were awarded as (section 3.2)
- Guaranteed fixed quotas of two athletes per gender/discipline for each country
- Each athlete in the top 10 of the Continuously Updated World Ranking (CUWR) is automatically qualified for a spot for the next season (the county's “Extra Quota” spots). These are named spots, so they can only go to the specific athletes in the top 10.
- An additional quota spot for each athlete from that country between 11th and 40th in the CUWR at the start of the year (“Additional Quota”) up to a maximum of 3. So if a country had 4 athletes between 11th and 40th, they only get 3 additional quota spots.
- Additional 4 spots if the country is hosting the World Cup.
The second point has led to the continual domination of the Japanese team at World Cups, especially in the Men’s Lead. In Briançon in 2023, seven Japanese Lead athletes were in the final, and six in 2024. Six Japanese men were in the 2024 Lead CUWR top 10 and a seventh-ranked 11th. Last year, 12 Japanese were in the men’s Lead top 40.
But this all changes in 2025.
In 2025, quota spots will be awarded as
- A guaranteed fixed quota of two athletes per gender/discipline for each country
- An additional quota spot for each athlete from that country in the top 40 in the CUWR at the start of the year up to a maximum of 4. So if a country had 6 athletes in the top 40, they only get 4 additional quota spots.
- Additional 4 spots if the country is hosting the World Cup.
There are no named athlete quota spots for World Cups in 2025. For a non-hosting country, the total number of athletes competing at a World Cup is capped at 6.
Who is most affected?
The country most affected is Japan. They will lose 11 spots in total:
- 5 from men's Lead,
- 3 from men's Boulder,
- 2 from women's Boulder, and
- 1 from women's Lead.
China is the only country whose Speed quotas are impacted, losing 4 spots over both genders. France lost one spot from men and women bouldering, and the USA women bouldering lost 1 spot as well.
With the new quota system, two countries gained quota spots: Germany gained an additional women's Boulder spot, and Italy's men's Lead team gained a spot.
The following countries will have a full set of 4 additional quota spots in 2025.
| Boulder Women | Boulder Men | Lead Women | Lead Men | Speed Women | Speed Men |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Japan | Japan | Japan | Japan | China | China |
| France | France | France | France | USA | USA |
| USA | Great Britain | Slovenia | Italy | Indonesia | Poland |
| Slovenia | Austria | Kazakstan | |||
| Germany |
What about the World Championship?
The quotas for the World Championship in 2025 is also affected.
Previously every country got
- 5 quota spots per gender/discipline
- Any current (adult) World Champion has a named spot. These are from the Bern 2023 World Championship:
- Janja Garnbret (Boulder), Ai Mori (Lead), Desak Made Rita Kusuma Dewi (Speed)
- Mickaël Mawem (Boulder), Jakob Schubert (Lead), Matteo Zurloni (Speed),
There were no performance-based quotas at all.
In 2025, this changes to:
- A guaranteed fixed quotas of two athletes per gender/discipline for each country.
- Variable quotas like in the World Cup, up to a maximum of three (3) athletes per gender/discipline/Country, depending on performance (top 40 of CUWR).
- Pre-qualification (by name) of the winner of the previous World Championship held in Bern in 2023.
- Pre-qualification (by name) of the winner of the Continental Championships held in 2024.
The variable quotas for the World Championship are fixed at 40 across all countries. This means that if a Country has 4 athletes in the top-40 of the Boulder women CUWR, athlete number 41 of the ranking will generate an extra quota for her country.
Why are the IFSC doing this?
While the IFSC do not explain why they are making changes to the World Cup quota system in the quota document, they do explain the changes for the World Championship. The IFSC focus on the changes to
- Manage the total number of athletes. A high number of athletes impacts the competition with long isolation times, increases costs related to space in isolation and the size of the warm up area. There are also other costs more athletes generate for the event and local organizer.
- Preserve the integrity of the World Championship. By introducing a performance based quota system, the IFSC want to preserve the World Championship as the pinnacle of the IFSC calendar. The system also incentivises the best athletes to compete at IFSC events, including Continental Championships. This new system aims to preserve the importance of the World Championship in the calendar.
- Increase the number of countries at the event. A side effect of reducing the number of athletes per country is to enable an increase in the number of countries taking part, which the IFSC views as “an important indicator of the sport[’s] development.”
As climbing develops and expand, managing the number of athletes at events and increasing the diversity of countries is important, but I feel bad for the Japanese team.
They have so many strong athletes and the process for joining the National Team is stressful enough already. The reduction in numbers significantly reduces the number of athletes they can send to World Cups and the opportunities for them to compete.
The only way countries gain more quota spots is through hosting World Cups to get the additional 4 spots for that competition. Will we see a Japan World Cup in 2026?
News
- The IFSC announced that the Indonesia World Cup will happen in Bali in 2025.
- The first of the 3 pre-season international competitions happened last weekend: Dockmasters. Here are the results:
- 1st – Giorgia Tesio, 2nd – Selma Elhadj-Mimoune, 3rd – Staša Gejo
- 1st – Arthur Rebollo, 2nd – Hannes Van Duysen, 3rd – Kaito Watanabe
- You can watch the replays of the semi-finals and finals on YouTube.
- British Bouldering Championship also happened last weekend. Here are the results:
- 1st – Erin McNeice, 2nd – Emma Edwards, 3rd –Fae MacDougall
- 1st – Jack MacDougall, 2nd – Hamish McArthur, 3rd – Dayan Akhtar.
Toby Roberts finished 4th and Max Milne 5th. - You can watch the replays on the BMC TV YouTube channel and "enjoy" watching 4 athletes climbing at once in a split screen format.
- Nicholas Collins finished his specialisation in Intensive Care and Emergency Nursing and announced his decision to focus full time on climbing
- The IFSC announced they are moving to a new home in Torino, Italy.
- A photo, titled Icarus, taken by Marton Monus at the Budapest OQS Speed Climbing event, won gold in the Urban & Extreme category of the World Sport Photography Awards.
Media Recommendations
Toby Roberts talk to Aidan and Sam about his training regime, competing at the Olympics, his mindset and his plans for 2025.
Mejdi Schalck shares his feelings on the big french invitation event Les Grips from December 2024.
“Before the new year I was feeling good and I was a bit concerned as I don’t normally feel good in training season. I made the terrible mistake of talking to my coaches and they changed my training and now I feel awful. I feel weak and fatigued and pathetic.”
Hear how winter training is going and what Erin's plans are for 2025.
What does it take to join the Japanese National Team? Marco talks with Hayato Nakamura about his journey to join the National Team.
Photographer Evan Zucker holds a competitions alongside 3 fellow photographers to see what really makes a great climbing photo.
International 2025 Competition Tickets
- 15 – 16th March: Studio Block Masters 2025. Registration opens on 1st February.
- 22 –23rd March: CWIF 2025. Registration starts on 1st February, and spectator tickets go on sale on March 3rd at noon.
- 23 – 29th June: Innsbruck 2025 World Cup. Tickets go on sale in early spring.
- 7 – 8th June: Prague Boulder World Cup. Tickets are on sale
- 14 – 16th June: Bern Boulder World Cup. Tickets are on sale.
Competitions to Watch
The Boulder Japan Cup (BJC) is this weekend, and all rounds are being streamed on YouTube (with Japanese commentary) on the JMSCA Competition TV YouTube channel.
Schedule
All times are JST (UTC +9)
- Qualification: Saturday 1 Feb, 10:30-16:30
- Semi finals: Sunday 2 Feb, 09:00-11:15
- Women's Final: Sunday 2 Feb, 14:15-15:45
- Men's Finals: Sunday 2 Feb, 16:45-18🕒
The Belgium Boulder Championship is also on this week held at the Arkose Canal climbing gym in Brussels.
