Hey,
As promised, let's dive deeper into where climbing World Cups have gone over the last 36 years.
Sport Climbing is an Urban Sport
The World Cup started off small back in 1989.
The World Cup went to Leeds in the UK, which Jerry Moffat famously won.
The circuit then went to La Riba in Spain, Bardonecchia in Italy, Snowbird in the USA, Vratza in Bulgaria, Yalta on the Crimean peninsula in the USSR, and Lyon in France.
The only two big places were Lyon and Leeds, both cities with over 500,000 people now.
But in 1990, the circuit got bigger.
It would visit Vienna in Austria, Berkeley in the USA, Lyon again in France, Nürnberg in Germany and Barcelona in Spain. The only small location that year was Madonna di Campiglio in Italy, a village and ski resort in northeast Italy with around 750 inhabitants (as of 2021).
The World Cup continued to expand over the next two years, visiting Kobe and Tokyo in Japan. The circuit would go to Innsbruck in Austria, Birmingham in the UK , Zürich in Switzerland, and Frankfurt in Germany.
In 1991, half of the World Cups were held in cities with populations of over a million people.
But in 1997, the World Cup would start going to more and more small locations, under 100,000 people in size. The medium, 100k to 1 million, and big, over 1 million, would be in the minority.
Because the number of World Cups each year has varied, from 3 in 1996 to 20 in 2011, we look at how the percentage of these different categories of locations has changed.
In 2012, 12 of the 18 World Cups would have had populations under 100K people.
Over these years, the World Cup would go to the mountain towns of Daone (Italy), Villars (Switzerland), Briançon (France), Vail (USA), Meiringen (Switzerland), and Fiera di Primiero (Italy). All of these places have hosted World Cups over 6 times, some many more.
All have populations of less than 11,000, with many of them smaller than 5,000.
Fiera di Primiero and Daone in Italy have hosted 17 World Cups between them, but both have a population of around 500 people.
This year, things are different.
The World Cup has gone to 15 places, including 7 big locations, 5 medium ones, and 2 small ones. This is the lowest percentage of small locations ever.
| Location | Population |
|---|---|
| Chamonix | 8,642 |
| Koper | 24,900 |
| Bern | 128,848 |
| Innsbruck | 130,585 |
| Salt Lake City | 200,133 |
| Denver | 715,522 |
| Krakow | 806,201 |
| Keqiao | 1,098,859 |
| Prague | 1,301,432 |
| Wujiang | 1,545,023 |
| Curitiba | 1,773,718 |
| Madrid | 3,332,035 |
| Guiyang | 4,324,561 |
| Bali | 4,361,106 |
Chamonix is an outlier by mountain village standards because its population can balloon to 130,000 in the summer during the tourist season. This year, the Chamonix World Cup attracted an estimated 18,500 people for the Lead final.
When I asked Piero Rebaudengo, the Secretary-General of the IFSC, about the move to larger locations hosting World Cups,
“The strategy is to show that we are not only a mountain sport. We are an outdoor sport, an urban sport, and an Olympic sport that deserves to be shown in iconic venues," he said. “Chamonix is iconic. Innsbruck is iconic. They also have great organisation. We are looking for the best places. The best audiences.”
“Personally, my dream is to be in Paris in front of the Tour Eiffel. Or in Rome in front of the Colosseum. Or somewhere in New York in Central Park.”
2025 was the year sport climbing left its mountain routes behind with the move to Madrid.
Where will it go next?
Where did I get the population data from?
The aim was to get a useful population number for each location to understand the changes behind where climbing World Cups have gone. I used the Geoapify API to get the OpenStreetMap population data for each location.
I tried to find the smallest population centre that fit the location. Yet, for some mountain villages, the population includes both the village and nearby areas. For Bali, the API returns the population for the whole island. Similarly, for some of the Chinese locations, the whole district is matched.
This method doesn't include any changes due to tourism nor cover those who travel to the competition. Some of the smaller locations don't have populations, so I manually went and found the data using government sources for the latest census data (in the last 5 years).
News & Results
- The Madrid Lead World Cup was a competition of firsts, with both Dohyun Lee and Annie Sanders winning their first World Cups. They both joined this select list of athletes who have won both lead and boulder gold medals. Dohyun was the 12th man and Annie the 9th woman.
Annie is also the first American woman to win both Lead and Boulder gold medals. She is the 4th American woman to win a Lead World Cup, and the first in 26 years.
Dohyun is the second South Korean man to win a Lead World Cup after Hyunbin Min won in 2012 in Mokpo, South Korea. - The Helsinki Youth World Championship starts next week. This is the first time in 4 years that the Youth World Championship is held in Europe. There are X athletes registered across the 2 age categories, under 17, and under 19, in Boulder, Lead and Speed. Matt Groom will be there to provide live commentary.
Media Recommendations
Sam Watson and Albert Ok gave a TEDx talk about what it takes to become the fastest man at the Olympics.
The Magnus and Janja collab everyone was wanting. It is a vibe.
Kris Hampton from Power Company Climbing shares the full 30-minute recording of the Snowbird 1988 Climbing Competition.
Jonathan Sin has a session with World Champion Mickael Mawem in his own gym. They talk about Mickael's focus on physical training and how he spent 20 years focused on becoming World Champion.
Tomoa Narasaki shares a behind-the-scenes vlog of the Brazil World Cup.
Where to Buy Tickets
IFSC Youth World Championships in Helsinki
When: 28th July–3rd August
Where: Finland
Where to buy tickets: Tickets are for:
Koper IFSC Lead World Cup
When: 4th–6th September
Where: Slovenia
Where to buy tickets: Tickets will be made available here (the ticket link currently does not work). If you are willing to go through the Slovenia ticket seller eventim (Google Translate does a good job at translating Slovenia), if you buy a finals ticket at the moment, you get a semi-final ticket for free.
Seoul IFSC World Championships
When: 20th–28th September
Where: South Korea
Where to buy tickets: Tickets will be needed for the following (all indoor events):
- Paraclimbing Finals
- Speed Qualification and Finals - Women and Men
- Lead Semi-Finals and Finals - Women and Men
- Boulder Semi-Finals and Finals - Women and Men.
All other events are free of charge. Access to the venue is limited. Entry is restricted to first-come, first-served. This platform was used last year for the Seoul World Cup.
Laval IFSC Paraclimbing World Cup
When: 23rd–26th October
Where: France
Where to buy tickets: You can buy tickets for the Para Climbing event and the Continental Speed event here.
After Madrid, we have a bit of a break from the World Cup circuit.
I am planning to spend the gap sharing the process and insights from the data on climbing styles Matias Ochoa and I gathered from the 2024 World Cups.
Do you have any questions about the climbing styles in 2024?
Let me know and I'll see if our data has the answers.
Cheers,
Rory
