We are delighted to announce that our media accreditation application for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, where Sport Climbing will make its Olympic debut, has been successful.
Demand for journalist accreditation from UK media outlets was high, resulting in the British Olympic Association (BOA) receiving more than 400 requests for the 150 press accreditations made available by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) across the 33 sports to be represented in Tokyo. Following our home Games in London 2012 and due to the upcoming Summer and Winter Games in Asia (Tokyo 2020, Beijing 2022), far fewer places have been allocated to British media than were provided in Athens 2004, Beijing 2008 and Rio 2016.
To assist with the allocation process, the British Olympic Association established a Media Accreditation Committee to act as an impartial panel to review and provide input on the BOA's recommendations to the IOC.
The Sport Climbing events will be held from the 4th-7th August 2020 in the Aomi Urban Sports Park, Tokyo.
During the 129th International Olympic Committee Session in Rio de Janeiro in August 2016, Sport Climbing was selected as part of a package of five new sports - alongside baseball/softball, surfing, skateboarding and karate - to be included in the Tokyo 2020 Games. The Olympic Combined format will consist of a 'triathlon' format of Speed, Boulder and Lead with an overall winner decided on performance across all three disciplines. 20 men and 20 women will compete for one of 6 places per category in the Olympic final. The IFSC explains the competition format in detail in an online document.
With 18 months to go before the Games kick off, it's still early days, but we're looking forward to planning our coverage of Sport Climbing's Olympic debut both in the run-up to Tokyo 2020 and during the big event itself. Stay tuned for updates on the Olympic selection process, a closer look at what the event schedule might look like plus interviews with potential Olympians, Team GB coaches and IFSC officials. We are open to suggestions for Olympic content, so feel free to comment in the forums or get in touch via email!
Read the full athlete selection criteria for the Tokyo 2020 Games here.
In the meantime, read some Olympics-related articles and news reports linked below:
Comments
Congratulations! Way back when this site started, did you ever imagine that you'd be doing this?
T.
Fantastic news, well done guys! I was quite worried that the coverage of the climbing in 2020 would be quite poor, if done by outlets with no clue about the sport, but looks like that now won't be the case at all!
Let's hope Angel from onbouldering & Udo Neumann got their press passes too.
They wouldn't be allowed to film anything though.
Yay! Looking forward to the coverage. It's been great on the site so far anyway.
A Tokyo 2020 section in the News dropdown would be good :)