IFSC Finalists Age Distribution

Age distribution of all IFSC World Cup finalists in 2022

by Tony Dang on November 25, 2022

The age range of climbing finalists in the 2022 IFSC World Cup is 16-35 years old, with the average age being 22 years old.

The IFSC World Cup is an annual series of climbing competitions organized by the International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC) and includes what I consider to be the best indoor rock climbers in the world.

As I watched the 2022 season, I often found myself wondering, “What is the average age of the best climbers in the world?”

To answer this question, I gathered the ages of all athletes who made it to a World Cup final in 2022 and plotted the following charts. This includes any athlete who made it to the final round of any of the 3 climbing disciplines (boulder, lead, and speed) as well as athletes who made it to the final round of the combined boulder & lead event.

All Finalists

From the data, it appears that the age range of climbing finalists in the 2022 IFSC World Cup is 16-35 years old, with the average age being 22 years old.

I was curious to see if the age distribution would be different among boulder, lead, and speed categories, so I also plotted the age distribution of each discipline separately.

Boulder Finalists

Lead Finalists

Speed Finalists

What was most surprising to me was that the average age (22 years old) stayed the same even when looking at the 3 disciplines separately!

Please feel free to explore the charts yourself and let me know if you find any insights. Tip: you can hover or tap on the charts to see toolips with individual athlete information.

Sources & Notes

All age data from athlete profiles on ifsc-climbing.org.
Data was obtained on Novemeber 19, 2022 so athlete ages may have changed since then.