Paris 2024 Olympics - Sport Climbing Format & Scoring
Here we break down how Sport Climbing and the scoring for it works in the Paris 2024 Olympics.
The format and scoring system for the Olympic “Sport Climbing” events can be very confusing and some significant changes have been made compared to the IFSC World Cup circuit and certainly compared to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
First and foremost the biggest change is in the separation of disciplines. For the Paris 2024 Olympics Lead, Boulder and Speed which in the previous olympics were one sport, have now been separated into two distinct disciplines “Lead and Boulder combined” and separately “Speed” under the overall category of “Sport Climbing”. At the Tokyo 2020 Olympics they were one discipline where your score in each style was multiplied together to deliver a combined result. The old format meant somebody doing very well in only two formats could have dominated even if doing very poorly in the third. Amongst the elite of the sport, there are ultimate specialists within each discipline but for Tokyo, even these specialists had to focus on the other disciplines more to have a hope in doing well overall.
For Paris, Speed being separate to Lead/Boulder allows the athletes to shine even more as more often than not individuals excel in only one, maybe two of these disciplines.
scoring
Lead and boulder combined
The Lead routes (one per round) will be divided into sections of ten holds, with each section progressively awarding more points per hold as the athletes advance up the route.
Only the top 40 holds of the Lead route will provide points to the athletes.
From the top to the bottom:
The top 10 holds of the Lead route will award 4 points for each hold secured.
The next 10 holds will be worth 3 points each.
The following 10 holds will grant 2 points each.
The next 10 holds will award 1 point each.
The remaining holds at the bottom of the Lead route will not grant any points.
Athletes who fall while moving towards the next hold will receive an additional 0.1 points, equivalent to the '+' in World Cup scoring.
(Top hold must be held in control and the final quickdraw clipped to achieve a score of 100 points. Failing to clip will result in a score of 99.9, and clipping early without continuing to the top hold will not be scored as a top/100 points.)
Below is what the scoring zones may look like in the Olympics alongside what a scoreboard looked like with previous scoring systems where one hold was one point and ‘+’ is equivalent to 0.1.
Photo from EPUSAClimbing and screenshot from Bern 2023 Men’s Lead Final
In Boulder, a significant update is that there are now two Zones per boulder and there are four boulders. This potentially allows for greater separation in the field between athletes and changes the structure of the boulders entirely, focusing less on a singular crux.
Athletes will also lose partial points for each fall but these deductions are only counted if the zone or top is reached. So they are not penalised for trying and failing to reach the next scoring area (Zone/Top).
Twenty-five (25) points will be given for reaching the Top, regardless of whether the competitor has controlled any Zone hold on the boulder.
Ten (10) points will be given for the second Zone without a Top, regardless of the first Zone
Five (5) points will be given for the first Zone hold.
One-tenth of a point (0.1) will be deducted for each failed attempt on a boulder once the next Zone or the Top is obtained.
Maximum total points across 4 boulders: 100
Examples:
A flash of a Boulder would be worth 25 points (0 fall deductions)
A third-go Top would be worth 24.8 (25-0.1-0.1) (2 fall deductions)
Reaching the second Zone on a sixth attempt would be worth 9.5 points (10-0.1-0.1-0.1-0.1-0.1) (5 fall deductions)
The combined scoring will be calculated by a simple addition of the Boulder and Lead score with the maximum score being 200 (100+100).
Speed Climbing
Speed scoring remains more or less the same as the current IFSC World Cups on the same 15m route. However the qualifiers are slightly different: Each athlete (14 Male, 14 Female) will set a preliminary time on both sides A and B of the speed wall and the fastest time will be taken, this is the Seeding. This will give them a ranking of #1-#14 which dictates how they are matched up in the Qualification (1/8 Final). Next they will be pitted against each other in standard tournament elimination rounds, starting at Qualification (1/8 Final), Quarterfinals, Semifinals and Finals, until there is a Gold, Silver, Bronze and 4th.
Left: Salt Lake City 2024 Women’s Speed Final Overall Score. Add the seeding prior to the 1/8 Final and you have the Paris 2024 Scoring
Athletes
There is a total of 68 athletes competing in Sport Climbing, with 28 in Speed (14 men and 14 women) and 40 (20 men and 20 women) in Combined Boulder and Lead.
With 12 medals up for grabs in total.
UKClimbing have created a neat easy to refer to Athlete profile page.
