The UIAA Ice Climbing World Tour makes its traditional stop to Cheongsong, South Korea from 10-12 January. The event is both the first of the five World Cups on three continents which make up the 2025 UIAA Ice Climbing World Tour, partnered by Outdoor Research, and includes the annual Asian Championships as part of its programme.
Nearly 120 athletes from the following member federations will take part: Canada (2), Czechia (2), France (5), China-Hong Kong (6), Iran (6), Ireland (1), Japan (10), Kazakhstan (3), Liechtenstein (3), Mongolia (8), Netherlands (2), Poland (7), Slovenia (2), Spain (3), Switzerland (5), United Kingdom (12), United States (12). Host country South Korea brings a squad of 27 athletes. A full list of registered athletes is available here.
Across both the men’s and women’s competitions, close and intriguing competition is forecast. Will the sizeable South Korean team take advantage on home territory? How will former world champion and multiple World Cup winner Louna Ladevant (France) fair on his return to competition? Will the young and burgeoning Spanish team make the step up to claiming podium places on the world level? Can World Champions in speed Mohammadreza Safdarian (Iran) and Aneta Louzecka (Czechia), main photo, continue to shine in both disciplines? Will a strong Swiss time featuring World Cup medallists Sina Goetz, Vivien Labarile and Benjamin Bosshard make an opening round statement? And how many athletes can the impressive contingents from the United Kingdom and the United States will contest the final rounds of competition?
Traditionally the South Korean team perform strongly in Cheongsong. Last year the hosts took five of the 12 medals on offer with Woonseon Shin and Younghye Kwon using their guile and experience to take the golds in lead. Younggeon Lee claimed silver in the men’s event. Shin and Lee would go on to take both the World Tour and the World Championship crowns. They are both among the registered athletes for Cheongsong (South Korea’s Apple County) where crowd favourite and former world champion Heeyong Park will also compete.
Spectators at the 2024 UIAA Ice Climbing World Cup in Cheongsong. Credit: UIAA/Rhea Kang
Action starts on Saturday 11 January with the lead qualification and entire speed competition. Sunday 12 January is reserved for the lead semi-finals and finals. The full event programme is available here.
The UIAA will provide livestream of both the speed finals (18:00 local time – 11 January) and the lead semi-finals (08:30 local time -12 January) and lead finals (14:30 local time – 12 January). For a time zone convertor please use the following link. Embed codes for the livestreams can be found below. Please subscribe to the UIAA YouTube channel for reminders and updates.
Assets for Media and Fans
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.
Live results will be available from the UIAA Ice Climbing website.
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.
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