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Indoor Weekly: Olympic 2020 Climber Selection System

Almost every competition climber has been wondering how the International Federation of Climbing and Internaitonal Olympic Committee would be selecting the 20 Male and 20 Female for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

The climber’s site 8a.nu has leaked a document they found which might give us the answer.

This is not official, but it looks like a pretty thought-out qualification system.

8a.nu said, “Although not official, the IFSC qualification system document for Tokyo 2020 has been found on internet.

“A total of 20 male and 20 female will participate and 1 + 1 is guaranteed the Host Nation and 1 + 1 Tripartite Commission. There is also a maximum of 2 athletes per nation.”

Their post continued with the information below. Whether or not this will be how climbers are selected, it gives a good idea of what the organizers are thinking.

The qualification events are listed in hierarchical order of qualification.
6 climbers: Top ranked on the Combined World Champion in Tokyo 2019
1 climber: Overall World Cup Winner (OWC) 2019
6 climbers: Qualifying event where Top-20 from OWC 2019 will participate
5 climbers: Continental Championship 2020

A. As soon as one country gets two spots (like from WCH 2019), that countries quota is full and the remaining qualifications have no impact for that country.
B. During the Continental Championship for Europe and Asia, it is likely that you do not have to qualify to the Top-6 final to make it through if you are not from; Japan, Austria, France, Italy, Slovenia or Germany.
C: It is not clear if Host and Tripartite Places go beyond max 2 + 2 per country.

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