Texas Will Host the 2022 Youth World Championships
"It fills me with pride to see the strong bond that we have built in the last few years with our friends at USA Climbing"
On March 17, the International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC) announced that the 2022 IFSC Youth World Championships will take place in Dallas, Texas. The famous competition will host of 400 young competitors and will run from August 22 through the 31. This announcement furthers the United States’s integration into the international climbing community.
This announcement came as the XVIII IFSC General Assembly began in Salt Lake City this morning. The athletes for this event will be separated into three age categories: Juniors, Youth A, and Youth B. While competitors will climb in each of Sport Climbing’s three categories, a fourth combined discipline will join the Lead, Boulder, and Speed medal events.
Unlike last year, the fourth discipline will only combine Lead and Boulder as per the new scoring system released for the forthcoming Paris Olympic Games. The event will take place at two of Texas’s premier climbing gyms, Movement Climbing’s The Hill and Summit Plano for Boulder and Lead/Speed respectively.
This competition joins the two Climbing World Cups, and one Paraclimbing World Cup in Salt Lake as international events held within the United States. These events follow the greatest increase in climbing gyms, year-over-year, ever reported by Climbing Business Journal and may further develop opportunities for indoor climbing in the United States and Canada.
As many athletes must pay their way to international events, both American and Canadian youth competitors will benefit from the relative proximity of the summer’s event.
IFSC President Marco Scolaris said the following regarding the announcement:
It fills me with pride to see the strong bond that we have built in the last few years with our friends at USA Climbing, establishing Salt Lake City as one of the landmarks of our World Cup Series, and finding new opportunities, first in Los Angeles and now in Dallas. The Youth World Championships is by far the most important showcase of young and talented climbers that one can imagine, and who knows? maybe we will have the chance to see the future Olympic Champion in action! Â
Featured image by Jan Virt.