What is the path one must trudge on to have a chance at glory in the competition widely considered as the most prestigious sporting event? As the World Cup circuit is right around the corner, I took the liberty to shed some light on the Olympic selection process. I’ve also discussed the infinitesimal possibility of an Indian sport climber qualifying for the 2024 Olympics .

To kickstart this discussion, let’s go over the selection process on a global scale and then carry on to Indian climbers. Olympics 2024 has two disciplines for sport climbing - Combined format (lead & bouldering) and Speed.

68 athletes will compete in the Second Sport Climbing Olympics with both disciplines having fixed total quotas - 28 speed climbers and 40 in Combined split equally between men and woman; 14 and 20 respectively.

These quotas would be awarded over a series of competitions starting with the World Championships in Switzerland, continuing with five continental qualifying events and concluding with the Olympic Qualifier Series.

Quota Distribution:

Bern World Championship (10 places)

• Top 3 male and female athletes in Combined (6)
• Top 2 male and female athletes in Speed (4)

Continental Qualifying Event (20 places)

Each continent has 4 quotas (4 quotas x 5 continental events)

• The highest male and female ranked athlete for combined (2)
• The highest male and female ranked athlete for speed (2)

The Invitational Olympic Qualifier series (30 places)

• Twenty combined athletes - 10 per gender
• Ten speed athletes - 5 per gender.

Reserved quotas (8 places)

• The Hosting National Olympic Committee is given (4 places) one quota per gender for each discipline.
• The remaining quota - 1 male and 1 female for each discipline is available through universality clause - awarded by the International Olympic Committee’s tripartite commission to promote sports development and equal opportunity to smaller countries (4 places).

Here are the schedules for all the Olympic events in 2023:

• 1-12 August: World Championship in Bern, Switzerland;
• 21-24 October: Pan American Qualifier in Santiago, Chile;
• 27-29 October: IFSC European Qualifier in Laval, France;
• 9 to 12 November: IFSC Asian Qualifier in Jakarta Indonesia
• 23-26 November: IFSC Oceanian Qualifier, location TBD
• 14-17 December: IFSC African Qualifier, location TBD
• Olympic qualifiers (March to June 2024 - dates & location TBD)

Here some important terms:

1. Qualifying places will be limited to two sport climbing athletes per nation per gender in each discipline.

2. Qualifying places are allocated to the athletes by name and is not transferable to other athletes of the federation.

3. The athlete must be born before 1st January 2008.

4. In the instance a quota is not cofirmed by the National Olympic Committee, the next highest eligible athlete in the respective event is given the spot following the same criteria.
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5. Any unused quotas after conclusion of all events would be reallocated based on the qualifier series ranking to the highest eligible athlete not yet qualified respecting maximum quota for a National Olympic Committee.

6. Invitations for 2024 Olympic Qualifier Series would be handed out based on 2023 world rankings.

7. Universality place criteria requires that the athlete should qualify to the Olympic Qualfier Series and be ranked within the top 36 of the series ranking.

Under this scenario, Indian Sport Climbers stand a bleak chance of qualifying to the Olympics. In my opinion, the highest chances to secure a spot would be to recieve an invitation to the Olympic qualifiers series. If an Indian ranks high enough and countries fill up their quotas to cancel out other athletes, an Indian could possibly qualify or at least be eligible to apply for universality quota.

However that would mean competing in multiple world cups and securing a rank close to top 20 - which means being a semifinal material in every comp for combined. Indian Speed Climbers are arguably closer to the world standard than Indian combined athletes but having only 5 quotas per gender has also significantly dropped their chances.

So Why even try? We try because the chances are not zero. A good example is Indian Climber Bharath Pereira qualifying for Youth Olympics back in 2018.

Out of 21 quotas available for Youth Olympics, Top 15 athletes of the world rankings were allotted quotas followed by 5 quotas in continentals and one reserved spot under universality given to Pan American Continental athletes. Bharath had participated in the continental championship with no expectations and placed tenth combined. Fortunately, it just so happened that all the athletes ranked higher than Bharath had already qualified and the continental spot fell to the highest eligible athlete which was Bharath.

An athlete venturing on these chances may seem like a lunatic, but what better purpose than to serve making the impossible possible?

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Sources:

1. Official Olympic Games Qualification documents

Lead and Bouldering

​https://stillmed.olympics.com/media/Documents/Olympic-Games/Paris-2024/Paris2024-QS-IFSC-Lead-Boulder.pdf?_ga=2.153983483.25705075.1680858544-632454809.1680520727​

Speed

​https://stillmed.olympics.com/media/Documents/Olympic-Games/Paris-2024/Paris2024-QS-IFSC-Lead-Boulder.pdf?_ga=2.188069483.25705075.1680858544-632454809.1680520727​

2. Youth Olympics 2018 format

​https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sport_climbing_at_the_2018_Summer_Youth_Olympics​