It’s not too soon for competition climbers to start looking to the Paris 2024 Summer Games. As this year’s season winds down, the International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC) released next year’s season schedule and Olympic qualifying slate.
After this weekend’s IFSC Lead and Speed Climbing World Cup showdowns in Edinburgh, Scotland, only two more events fill the season calendar. When the final buzzer sounds at the Boulder and Lead World Cup in Japan on Oct. 22, athletes will start looking ahead to next year.
Now, they’ve got a blueprint to start building their plans around. The IFSC released its 2023 season schedule today, complete with Paris 2024 Summer Olympics qualifying events. Twelve IFSC World Cup stops fill the calendar from April until September. And at the end of the slate, Olympic qualifying rounds take over until mid-December.
Each 2023 IFSC World Cup stop arrives at a set location; familiar locales like Salt Lake City; Innsbruck, Austria; and Briançon, France, anchor the tour. In contrast, the IFSC only announced two Olympic qualifying locations: a Sept. 9-10 date in Italy (city TBD) and an Oct. 27-29 date in Laval, France.
The remaining storylines for the 2022 IFSC World Cup season include Natalia Grossman (USA) and Janja Garnbret (SLO) running away with the women’s Boulder and Lead seasons, respectively. Grossman has widened the distance between herself and the rest of the field with consistency and leads second-place Boulder contender Miho Nonaka (JPN) by almost 2,000 points with just one stop to go.
Meanwhile, Japan’s men’s team looks poised to sweep the Boulder podium unless Germany’s Yannick Flohé can do anything about it from fourth place. Two Lead events remain, and the men’s championship is anybody’s game, with Luka Potocar (SLO) and Jesse Grupper (USA) breathing down leader Taisei Homma’s (JPN) neck.
Grupper won the Sept. 11 men’s Lead competition in Edinburgh, and dark horse Ai Mori (JPN) edged out Garnbret for the women’s win. The next action for IFSC competition climbers will be Sept. 24-26 in Jakarta, Indonesia.
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For all 2022 season standings, including Speed and Combined divisions, go to the IFSC’s rankings page. Here’s the calendar for next season, plus every 2024 Olympic qualifying event. The Olympic “sport climbing” competition, as the International Olympic Federation calls the combined event, will run in Paris from Aug. 5 to 10, 2024.
2023 IFSC Season Calendar
- April 21-23: IFSC Boulder World Cup in Hachioji, Japan
- April 28-30: IFSC Boulder and Speed World Cup in Seoul, South Korea
- May 6-7: IFSC Speed World Cup in Indonesia
- May 19-21: IFSC Boulder and Speed World Cup in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
- June 2-4: IFSC Boulder World Cup in Prague, Czech Republic
- June 9-11: IFSC Boulder World Cup in Brixen, Italy
- June 14-18: IFSC Boulder and Lead World Cup in Innsbruck, Austria
- June 30-July 2: IFSC Lead and Speed World Cup in Villars, Switzerland
- July 7-9: IFSC Lead and Speed World Cup in Chamonix, France
- July 14-15: IFSC Lead World Cup in Briançon, France
- Sept. 1-2: IFSC Lead World Cup in Koper, Slovenia
- Sept. 22-24: IFSC Lead and Speed World Cup in Wujiang, China
2023 Olympic Qualifying Calendar
- Sept. 9-10: IFSC Speed European Olympic Qualifier in Italy
- Oct. 27-29: IFSC Boulder & Lead European Olympic Qualifier in Laval, France
- Nov. 3-7: IFSC Asian Olympic Qualifier, location TBD
- Nov. 23-26: IFSC Oceanian Olympic Qualifier, location TBD
- Dec. 14-17: IFSC African Olympic Qualifier, location TBD
