Breaking Down 2024 Olympic Sport Climbing Scoring System
Table of Contents
Changes to Sport Climbing Format
Sport climbing made its debut at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Following its successful introduction, it will return for the Paris 2024 Olympics with some significant changes to its competition format and the sport climbing scoring system.
Tokyo 2020 Olympics sport climbing format included speed, lead, and boulder as a single combined event. At the Paris 2024 Olympics we will see the separation of the events into two distinct disciplines: Speed Climbing and Combined Climbing [Boulder and Lead].
What does the new sport climbing format mean for the Paris 2024 Olympics? This new change will mean twice the number of medals available with male and female podiums in the two events. Many in the climbing community believe that this new format will be a better display of professional climbers true athleticism as it means that lead and boulder athletes wont have to partake in speed climbing, which is an event they rarely compete in. Vice versa for speed climbers who seldom participate in lead/boulder competitions.
In the end, spectators will see the new format feature the best of the best shine in their respective discipline.
Sport Climbing Scoring System
In addition to the new sport climbing format featuring two events [Speed and Lead&Boulder], there will be a new sport climbing scoring system featured at the Paris 2024 Olympics. We have broken down the sport climbing scoring system for you down below.
Combined [Lead&Boulder] Event
The combined event is divided into Lead Climbing and Bouldering with a total of 40 professional climbers [20 Male and 20 Female] competing in the event. Athletes can earn a total of 200 points, which is broken down into 100 points for lead climbing and 100 points for bouldering.
Lead Climbing [100 points]
Lead climbing involves athletes trying to climb as high as possible on a wall measuring more than 15m while clipping their rope into quickdraws along the set route. The sport climbing scoring system for lead climbing is as follows:
- Scoring Points: Athletes score points for successfully holding the top 40 holds with the number of points scored for each hold increasing as the climber moves higher on the wall.
- For example, if the route had 55 holds:
- TOP
10 Holds – 4 Points
10 Holds – 3 Points
10 Holds – 2 Points
10 Holds – 1 Point
15 Holds – 0 Points
BOTTOM
- Attempting Next Hold: Athletes can be awarded additional +0.1 points on top of their score for moving towards the next hold but failing to securely get to it.
- Quickdraws: Failure to clip quickdraws invalidates any further progress on the route.
- Time: 6 minutes
Bouldering [100 points]
Bouldering involves climbing a series of short but challenging routes, called “bouldering problems,” without the use of ropes. The sport climbing scoring system for bouldering in the combined event is as follows:
- Bouldering Problems: Athletes will have four chances to score on 4 bouldering problems with the aim of getting to the top of each problem in as few attempts as possible in the alloted time.
- Zones and Tops: Reaching Zone 1 will award the athlete 5 points, Zone 2 is worth 10 points, and 25 points is awarded to an athlete securely reaching the TOP hold with two hands.
- Deductions: 0.1 is deducted for each failed attempt before securing the next scoring hold.
- Ranking: Climbers are ranked based on the number of tops, zones, and attempts. Fewer attempts to achieve the same result are considered better.
- Time: 5 minutes
All 40 climbers participate in the semi-final rounds. The top 16 climbers [8 Male and 8 Female] with the highest combined scores for lead climbing and bouldering move on to the final. At the end of the final, the top 3 male and female climbers receive the gold, silver, and bronze medals.
Speed Climbing Event
Speed climbing involves two climbers racing side-by-side on a 15m wall, which consists of the exact same standardised route, with the aim of completing the route in the quickest possible time. This event is divided into the seeding qualification round, quarter-finals, semi-finals, and big/small finals.
Seeding Qualification Round: All speed climbers (14 Male and 14 Female) do two speed runs (one run on wall A and one run on wall B) with their fastest time giving them a ranking between 1st and 14th. This determines their match-ups for the elimination rounds: quarter-finals, semi-finals, and big/small finals.
Winners: The sport climbing scoring system is different for speed climbing because there isn’t a point system. Climbers go head to head in elimination rounds with the fastest climber moving on to the next round until the big final (which determines the gold and silver medals) and the small final (which determines the bronze medal and 4th place).
Video Explaining Olympic Sport Climbing Scoring and Format
Check out this video by Walrus Climbing breaking down everything you need to know about the Olympic Climbing at Paris 2024. It includes a comprehensive breakdown of the sport climbing scoring system, format, and other relevant information pertaining to Olympic Climbing at Paris 2024.
