Sport Climbing

Tarnow hosts the competition 

The competition of 100 athletes from 17 countries, for gold medals, will begin already on June 22 and will last for the next three days at the Academy of Applied Sciences in Tarnow. The grandstands will accommodate 2,500 spectators. Winning this competition, will result in the awarding of gold, silver and bronze medals to the competitors.

The climbing walls of the Academy of Applied Sciences (ANS) in Tarnow will be located on the campus where the Tarnow Climbing Center will be built. The ANS sports facilities have already been the venue for many sporting events, including the rank of Polish Senior or Junior Championships, the Junior European Cup in sport climbing. League games of handball (extra-league) and women’s volleyball (first league) have also been held there.

Rules of the games

In sport climbing, a distinction is made – separately for men and women – between the following competitions: bouldering, which is climbing on usually free-standing climbing walls several meters high without the use of rope belay. The goal is to solve, depending on the round, 4-5 problems, so-called boulders, on a 4.5-meter wall, with as few attempts as possible. The time limit for each attempt is from 4 to 5 minutes, depending on the round. Time climbing, a type of climbing where the result is determined by the speed of the route. Pairs of competitors race on identical side-by-side routes on a 15-meter wall, with a 5-degree overhang, and the winner moves on to the next round. A guided climbing competition, where climbers use a belay rope, clipping it into successive points that are placed along the entire climbing route. The goal of this competition is to climb as high as possible within 6 minutes, on a wall with a height of 15-16 meters. The winner is determined by the highest point reached on the route – the hold or the last belay point. Climbing combination, which consists of two or three of the above-mentioned sports competitions: The score is the product of the places a competitor took in each competition.

Championships and regular cup competitions are held in each of these competitions. In sport climbing and rock climbing, several climbing styles can also be distinguished: on sight (OS) – this style means to pass a given climbing route without knowing it, and the climber must pass it in one approach without falling off, flash (FL) – it is allowed to watch other people’s passes, red point (RP) – the climber passes the route in one approach without falling off the wall, before that he can train (patent) particular parts of the route. Top rop (TR) – this is climbing with a top belay, so called “on the rod”.

After 30 years finally on the Olympic program

Sport climbing has become very popular over the past two decades. The first competitions in this discipline were held in the second half of the 20th century in natural terrain – on rocks, including in Italy and Russia.

In the early 1990’s, competitions moved to purpose-built artificial climbing walls, which over the next few years significantly contributed to the development of climbing walls and the popularity of sport climbing, making it accessible to everyone.

The first world championships in sport climbing were held in 1991 in Frankfurt. Since then, they have been held every two years, and only since 2020, sport climbing has been included in the program of the Summer Olympics.

Sport climbing is governed by the International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC).