The 2025 UIAA Ice Climbing World Tour kicks off on 10 January with the opening World Cup of the season in Cheongsong, South Korea. Over 150 athletes from more than 25 member federation countries are expected to compete across the two-month season which will see five World Cups staged in five different countries and on three continents. The Ice Climbing World Tour, run by the UIAA since the early 2000s, is partnered by Outdoor Research.
Continuity and evolution will be at the fore. The opening three stages of the World Cup will take place in venues familiar to athletes. All three offer contrasting experiences. Set in the secluded Korean mountains and organised by the Korean Alpine Federation (KAF), Cheongsong always offers highly technical routes and will additionally stage the Asian Championships.
For the 25th year in a row, the Swiss resort of Saas-Fee hosts a UIAA-sanctioned event, an impressive feat for the organizers, supported by the Swiss Alpine Club. Saas-Fee is a unique venue, where a very partisan and sizeable crowd are able to follow the action from many different vantage points.
The second and final European stop is in Champagny-en-Vanoise, supported by UIAA member association FFCAAM. Champagny is often referred to as a ‘winter wonderland’ and with the French Alps hosting the 2030 Winter Olympic Games, it presents an opportunity for competition ice climbing to showcase its potential in a future Olympic setting.
The World Tour concludes in North America. Over the past decade, visits to North America have become more frequent. Colorado, from Ouray to Denver, has become a favourite stop. This year the honour goes to the town of Longmont, located in the Boulder and Weld counties. The event will provide the perfect opportunity to showcase the burgeoning development of US team supported by the American Alpine Club. The AAC will host the event in partnership with the Longmont Climbing Collective.
The hosting of UIAA ice climbing events have not been confined to mountain regions over recent years. For the third time, the World Tour will visit a downtown urban area with Edmonton, Canada following on from its hosting of last year’s World Championships with the final World Cup of the season, combined with the North American Championships. The event, set against the city’s business district, is supported by the hosts Offbeat Entertainment and the Alpine Club of Canada and expected to draw a huge public.
2024 UIAA Ice Climbing World Youth Championships in Champagny-en-Vanoise (France). Photo: UIAA / Julia ROGER-VEYER
The World Tour format is relatively simple. At each of the five World Cups, medals are granted to the top three male and female athletes in the lead and speed disciplines. The World Tour winners are the athletes who accumulate the most points across the five World Cups. The defending champions are: Lee Younggeon and Woonseon Shin of South Korea in lead and Mongolia’s Mandakhbayar Chuluunbaatar and Aneta Louzecka, Czech Republic, in speed. A number of UIAA member associations have made a significant commitment to the development of their ice climbing teams. This year a sizable contingent of athletes are expected from the following countries: France, Japan, Liechtenstein, Mongolia, Poland, Slovakia, Switzerland, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.
There have also been some seminal changes to the organisation of competition ice climbing. At the 2024 UIAA General Assembly, a dedicated Operating Unit ‘World Ice Climbing’ was created. The newly formed World Ice Climbing comprises a board of elected specialists supported by two athlete representatives.
“The approved new structure of ice climbing is going to enable the people who are experts in this field to work with a greater degree of independence. This is a major step in allowing the sport to develop.”
Peter Muir, UIAA President
Full details on the creation of World Ice Climbing are available here.
Another key moment of the season is the annual World Youth Championships where athletes across U16, U18 and U20 age categories will compete for world titles. The 2025 edition takes place in Ouray, Colorado from 7-9 February. This is the first time that the Youth World Championships has been hosted outside of Europe. Furthermore, the Continental Open season is already underway with four events having taken place in Europe in November-December 2024 and the final two competitions of the season scheduled for Ouray, USA in late January and Sunderland, England, in early March.
“What a season we have lined up! It’s taken a lot of hard work to build the World Tour back up to where we were in 2019 – but the 2025 season will be amazing, with events on three continents. We are really looking forward to using this season to develop the sport in terms of bringing in new athletes, federations and fans of the sport. It will be a seminal season for Ice Climbing especially with the creation of World Ice Climbing to lead the sport forward towards a bright future!”
Rob Adie, UIAA Sports Events Coordinator
Assets for Media and Fans
The semi-finals and finals of all lead and finals of all speed competitions will be livestreamed on the UIAA YouTube channel. Please subscribe to receive reminders about streaming times. Livestream details for most events are now available.
The UIAA documentary series On Thin Ice, tracking the best moments of the 2024 season and offering a behind the scenes perspective of the sport, is available to view on the UIAA YouTube channel. Five episodes have been released.
Short-form content, highlights, podium posts and updates will be available on the UIAA social media channels, notably Facebook and Instagram.
Event photos will be available on the UIAA Flickr channel.
A selection of ‘best of’ photos for media, prepared for the 2024-2025 season, can be found here.
Press releases will be available for all World Cup events, both previews (-3 days before) and reviews (day +1). Please subscribe to receive press releases directly to your inbox.
Please visit iceclimbing.sport for all event information, details on event programmes and timings, athlete registrations, live results and more.
UIAA ICE CLIMBING WORLD TOUR PARTNER
Main photo: 2024 UIAA Ice Climbing World Championships in Edmonton (Canada). Credit: UIAA/Slobodan Mišković
