Difficulty climbing

Climbing wall for difficulty climbing at the 2018 Summer Youth Olympic Games .

Difficulty climbing (English lead climbing , more rarely difficulty (climbing) or colloquially onsight competition ) is the usual name for a discipline of competitive sport climbing . The official international competitions are organized by the International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC).

mode

The athletes have to climb challenging routes from about 15 to 20 meters in height on sight , sometimes also in flash, while observing a time limit. The maximum height reached is assessed.

At the beginning of an onsight competition, the athletes are allowed to view the respective route from below for 6 minutes during the observation time in order to think about and memorize the climbing moves. After that, they need to in a separate room or area, called isolation zone or shortly isolation , waiting to be used to ensure that the equality is preserved, and the sequence of climbing athletes will not affect the result. In the case of routes to be mastered in flash mode, often in qualification, the routes are pre-climbed by the route builders or demonstrated to the athletes via video on screens provided, and the subsequent isolation is not required.

International competitions usually include two qualification routes (Flash), a semi-final (Onsight) and a final route (Onsight).

If an athlete reaches the maximum height of a route, this is referred to as top . If two or more athletes reach exactly the same height in the final route and had the same rating in the preliminary rounds, the time required until the fall counts. In this case, the climber with the shorter time will be better placed.

On August 4, 2016, the IOC decided that an Olympic combination of difficulty climbing would be included in the program for the 2020 Summer Games , the competition consists of speed climbing , bouldering and difficulty climbing . It was first performed at the 2018 Summer Youth Olympic Games .

Web links

• Rules 2018 International Climbing Competitions. (PDF (1.7 MB)) Chapter 6: Lead. International Federation of Sport Climbing, accessed October 1, 2018 (English, the 2016 official set of rules for international sport climbing competitions). 
• World ranking in difficulty climbing for men
• World ranking in difficulty climbing for women

Individual evidence

1. ^ IOC approves five new Olympic sports . spiegel.de. Retrieved September 6, 2016.