The 2021 IFSC Climbing World Cup was the 33rd edition of the international sport climbing competition series, held in seven locations. There are 11 events: four bouldering, five lead, and two speed events. The season began on 16 April in Meiringen, Switzerland with the first bouldering competition in the season, and concluded on 4 September in Kranj, Slovenia. The International Federation of Sport Climbing had initially scheduled 18 events concluding on 31 October, but COVID-19 travel restrictions resulted in the cancellation of events in Xiamen and Wujiang in China, Jakarta in Indonesia and Seoul in South Korea.
This season was the first completed IFSC Climbing World Cup series since the 2019 edition, as the 2020 IFSC Climbing World Cup was limited to just one event, the Briançon Lead World Cup in August 2020, due to the pandemic. The opening event in Meiringen was the first Boulder World Cup since the 2019 season. The Boulder World Cup and the Boulder and Speed World Cup scheduled for 21–22 May and 28–30 May, respectively, in Salt Lake City, United States, were the first-ever consecutive IFSC World Cups held in the same city.
The top 3 in each competition receive medals, and the overall winners are awarded trophies. At the end of the season an overall ranking is determined based upon points, which athletes are awarded for finishing in the top 30 of each individual event.
Season winners +EventFirstSecondThirdMen's Lead Stefano Ghisolfi319 points Sean Bailey277 points Masahiro Higuchi263 pointsWomen's Lead Janja Garnbret300 points Natalia Grossman296 points Laura Rogora278 pointsMen's Bouldering Yoshiyuki Ogata255 points Kokoro Fujii255 points Adam Ondra200 pointsWomen's Bouldering Natalia Grossman345 points Janja Garnbret280 points Oriane Bertone235 pointsMen's Speed Veddriq Leonardo200 points Kiromal Katibin145 points Marcin Dzieński96 pointsWomen's Speed Emma Hunt131 points Patrycja Chudziak120 points Aleksandra Mirosław Ekaterina Barashchuk100 points
Scheduling In December 2020, the IFSC moved the 21–22 May Boulder World Cup from Munich, Germany to Salt Lake City, United States, and rescheduled the already existing Boulder & Speed World Cup in Salt Lake City from 11 to 13 June to 28–30 May, in order to minimize travel for athletes and staff. In March, the federation also moved the Seoul, South Korea and Wujiang, China World Cups from April and May to October because of ongoing COVID-19 related restrictions in the respective countries. In July, the Lead World Cup in Ljubljana, Slovenia was moved to Kranj, Slovenia, and rescheduled from 4–5 to 3–4 September.
In August, the federation cancelled the World Cups in China: the 15–17 October Lead & Speed World Cup in Xiamen and the 22–24 October Boulder & Speed World Cup in Wujiang. In September, the federation also cancelled the 30–31 October Speed World Cup in Jakarta, Indonesia, which had already been postponed from 23 to 24 October. The following week, the IFSC also cancelled the Boulder and Speed World Cup in Seoul, originally scheduled for May and pushed back to October, due to rising COVID-19 cases in South Korea. The cancellation of the Jakarta and Seoul World Cups mean the bouldering and speed seasons concluded in June in Innsbruck and Villars in July, respectively.
Competition highlights Because of the cancellations caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the opening World Cup event of 2021 Meiringen held 16–17 April 2021, was the first Boulder World Cup in 22 months, since Vail, Colorado in September 2019., and the first Climbing World Cup of any discipline since August 2020 in Briançon. Adam Ondra won the men's gold, his 20th career World Cup medal, with 3 tops in the final. On the women's side, Slovenia's Janja Garnbret continued her winning run from her unbeaten 2019 bouldering campaign, winning the competition by topping all boulders with just four falls while 16-year-old French climber Oriane Bertone made her senior competition debut with a second-place finish behind Garnbret.
Garnbret did not participate in the first of two World Cups in Salt Lake City held 21–22 May, bringing her streak of seven Boulder World Cup wins to an end. In her absence, Grossman won the gold, followed by Bertone, who again finished second, while Ondra repeated as the men's Boulder winner. Grossman repeated as the winner in the second Salt Lake City event, held 28–30 May, this time becoming the first woman to defeat Garnbret, who finished second, since April 2018. In the men's speed competition, Kiromal Katibin of Indonesia set a world record time of 5.258 seconds in qualifying, a record that was broken the same day by fellow Indonesian, Veddriq Leonardo, who hit the buzzer at 5.20 in the final run against Katibin.
Garnbret won all three Lead World Cups she entered in 2021, winning a record 31st World Cup gold medal in Kranj in September and taking the overall season title. On the men's side, Stefano Ghisolfi took the Lead season title, having won the event in Briançon in addition to two second places at the World Cups in Innsbruck and Chamonix, while Sean Bailey's two wins in Villars and Chamonix earned him second place in the overall Lead season ranking.
Broadcast incident Austrian broadcaster Osterreichischer Rundfunk (ORF) issued an apology during the Innsbruck World Cup, after showing slow-motion, close-up footage that zoomed on the chalk handprints on Johanna Färber's bottom on the event's live feed on YouTube. IFSC removed the video from its YouTube channel and replaced it a version without the footage. Färber later posted a message on her Instagram, calling the incident "disrespectful and upsetting"
Overview No.LocationGoldSilverBronze1 Meiringen, SwitzerlandApril, 16–18BM Adam Ondra3T3z 10 7 Yoshiyuki Ogata2T4z 7 9 Tomoaki Takata1T4z 4 12W Janja Garnbret4T4z 7 6 Oriane Bertone2T4z 8 10 Natalia Grossman2T4z 10 102 Salt Lake City, United StatesMay, 21-22BM Adam Ondra4T4z 8 7 Mejdi Schalck3T4z 4 5 Jakob Schubert3T3z 4 4W Natalia Grossman4T4z 15 14 Oriane Bertone3T4z 7 7 Brooke Raboutou3T3z 4 33 Salt Lake City, United StatesMay, 28–30BM Sean Bailey2T4z 9 11 Kokoro Fujii1T4z 9 12 Tomoa Narasaki1T3z 1 3W Natalia Grossman4T4z 4 4 Janja Garnbret4T4z 6 6 Brooke Raboutou3T4z 5 8SM Veddriq Leonardo5.208 Kiromal Katibinfall Marcin Dzieński5.842W Aleksandra Mirosław7.382 Emma Hunt7.539 Miho Nonaka8.9584 Innsbruck, AustriaJune, 23–26BM Yoshiyuki Ogata2T2z 7 7 Tomoa Narasaki1T3z 2 11 Kokoro Fujii1T1z 2 2W Janja Garnbret3T3z 3 3 Natalia Grossman3T3z 9 9 Staša Gejo1T3z 2 6LM Jakob Schubert47+ Stefano Ghisolfi47 Sascha Lehman38+W Janja GarnbretTOP Brooke Raboutou40 Akiyo Noguchi385 Villars, SwitzerlandJuly, 1–3LM Sean Bailey 38 Alexander Megos 35+ Colin Duffy 31+W Janja Garnbret TOP Laura Rogora TOP Natalia Grossman 42+SM Veddriq Leonardo 5.329 Dmitrii Timofeev 7.35 Kiromal Katibin 5.306W Ekaterina Barashchuk 7.306 Iuliia Kaplina 8.397 Patrycja Chudziak 7.7366 Chamonix, FranceJuly, 12–13LM Sean Bailey34+ Stefano Ghisolfi32 Martin Stráník32W Laura RogoraTOP Natalia Grossman41+ Aleksandra Totkova38+7 Briançon, FranceJuly, 17–18LM Stefano Ghisolfi42+ Dmitrii Fakirianov39+ Martin Stráník37+W Eliška Adamovská36 Natalia Grossman35+ Vita Lukan298 Kranj, SloveniaSeptember, 3–4LM Masahiro Higuchi37 Luka Potočar31+ Sebastian Halenke31+W Janja Garnbret49+ Chaehyun Seo46 Natalia Grossman41+
Bouldering
The overall ranking is determined based upon points, which athletes are awarded for finishing in the top 30 of each individual event. There were four competitions in the season. The national ranking is the sum of the points of that country's three best male and female athletes. Results displayed (in brackets) are not counted.
Men The results of the ten most successful athletes of the Bouldering World Cup 2021: Rank Name Points Meiringen Salt Lake City I Salt Lake City II Innsbruck 1 Yoshiyuki Ogata 255 2. 80 16. 20 4. 55 1. 100 2 Kokoro Fujii 255 4. 55 4. 55 2. 80 3. 65 3 Adam Ondra 200 1. 100 1. 100 ( — ) ( — ) 4 Sean Bailey 166 13. 26 8. 40 1. 100 47. 0 5 Mejdi Schalck 157 12. 28 2. 80 9. 37 20. 12 6 Tomoa Narasaki 145 ( — ) ( — ) 3. 65 2. 80 7 Nathaniel Coleman 142 5. 51 21. 10 10. 34 6. 47 8 Nicolai Užnik 132 14. 24 11. 31 15. 22 4. 55 9 Alexander Megos 129 8. 40 9. 37 14. 24 12. 28 10 Simon Lorenzi 123.5 29. 1.5 7. 43 12. 28 5. 51
Women The results of the ten most successful athletes of the Bouldering World Cup 2021: Rank Name Points Meiringen Salt Lake City I Salt Lake City II Innsbruck 1 Natalia Grossman 345 3. 65 1. 100 1. 100 2. 80 2 Janja Garnbret 280 1. 100 ( — ) 2. 80 1. 100 3 Oriane Bertone 235 2. 80 2. 80 4. 55 16. 20 4 Brooke Raboutou 207 9. 37 3. 65 3. 65 8. 40 5 Miho Nonaka 192 7. 43 4. 55 6. 47 6. 47 6 Staša Gejo 173 13. 26 11. 31 5. 51 3. 65 7 Katja Debevec 158 6. 47 8. 40 7. 43 12. 28 8 Futaba Ito 135 ( — ) 7. 43 9. 37 4. 55 9 Akiyo Noguchi 122 4. 55 ( — ) 18. 16 5. 51 10 Mao Nakamura 92 ( — ) 10. 34 14. 24 10. 34
National Teams The results of the ten most successful countries of the Bouldering World Cup 2021:
Country names as used by the IFSC
Rank Name Points Meiringen Salt Lake City I Salt Lake City II Innsbruck 1 Japan1235.02. 298.03. 231.02. 308.01. 398.0 2 1088.03. 209.01. 265.01. 390.02. 224.0 3 Slovenia798.01. 312.05. 148.04. 168.03. 170.0 4 635.854. 156.62. 238.753. 177.08. 63.5 5 Austria498.257. 91.954. 204.010. 34.84. 167.5 6 Germany403.16. 93.56. 119.05. 108.05. 82.6 7 Belgium215.5512. 22.08. 69.557. 51.06. 73.0 8 Czech Republic200.05. 100.07. 100.0 ( — ) ( — ) 9 Italy190.611. 22.959. 66.09. 45.710. 55.95 10 Serbia173.010. 26.011. 31.07. 51.07. 65.0
* = Joint place with another athlete
Lead
The overall ranking is determined based upon points, which athletes are awarded for finishing in the top 30 of each individual event. There were five competitions in the season. The national ranking is the sum of the points of that country's three best male and female athletes. Results displayed in parentheses are not counted.
Men The results of the ten most successful athletes of the Lead World Cup 2021: RankNAMEPointsInnsbruckVillarsChamonixBriançonKranj1 Stefano Ghisolfi3192. 8011. 312. 801. 10012. 282 Sean Bailey277( — )1. 1001. 1004. 5515. 223 Masahiro Higuchi2634. 557. 439. 3712. 281. 1004 Luka Potočar2127. 4325. 67. 438. 402. 805 Sascha Lehmann2043. 6512. 284. 555. 5126. 56 Martin Stráník192.8712. 2832. 0.873. 653. 6510. 347 Alberto Ginés López1695. 515. 5114. 247. 43( — )8 Sebastian Halenke160.057. 04. 5515. 2217. 183. 659 Domen Škofic13517. 1815. 2225. 610. 344. 5510 Alexander Megos1276. 472. 80( — )( — )( — )
Women The results of the ten most successful athletes of the Lead World Cup 2021: RankNAMEPointsInnsbruckVillarsChamonixBriançonKranj1 Janja Garnbret3001. 1001. 100( — )( — )1. 1002 Natalia Grossman29625. 63. 652. 802. 803. 653 Laura Rogora2787. 432. 801. 100( — )4. 554 Vita Lukan2696. 475. 514. 553. 655. 515 Lucka Rakovec1858. 407. 4323. 86. 476. 476 Aleksandra Totkova16818. 166. 473. 658. 40( — )7 Eliška Adamovská16212. 28( — )10. 341. 100( — )8 Momoko Abe14613. 264. 5511. 3125. 612. 289 Natsuki Tanii128( — )( — )5. 519. 378. 409 Lana Skusek12816. 2011. 3143. 07. 4310. 34
National Teams The results of the ten most successful countries of the Lead World Cup 2021:
Country names as used by the IFSC RankNationPointsInnsbruckVillarsChamonixBriançonKranj1 Slovenia1244.02. 274.02. 229.05. 135.01. 230.01. 376.02 Japan1041.01. 279.03. 193.04. 158.05. 134.02. 277.03905.955. 110.551. 269.02. 237.02. 200.55. 88.94 Italy796.83. 149.756. 132.851. 244.54. 164.04. 105.75593.958. 80.755. 147.23. 192.07. 87.06. 87.06 Germany547.210. 57.24. 159.07. 91.356. 95.853. 143.87 Czech Republic396.557. 96.019. 0.96. 99.853. 165.813. 34.08 Austria364.254. 117.657. 71.7513. 35.59. 77.758. 61.69 Switzerland340.156. 96.39. 50.48. 86.810. 70.9512. 35.710 Russia262.559. 57.7511. 41.812. 40.08. 80.011. 43.0
Speed