Six nations from around the world will compete in Fukuoka, Japan in an exhibition team event – the IFSC Nations Grand Finale.

The competition is a little different to the IFSC World Cup’s as teams climb to win the podium spots, with the coaches and tactics playing a bigger role in the action.

Let’s look a bit closer at the competitions

For each discipline (Boulder and Lead), each Team will be composed by four athletes: two men, two women + one coach.

BOULDER

Qualification will have the six teams with the two top scoring teams progressing to the Final.

The remaining four teams will go into an Elimination Heat with the two top scoring teams once again progressing to the Final.

The final will feature the four teams qualified from both Qualification and the Elimination Heat.

Boulder scoring

There will be five boulders – two for men, two for women, and one ‘mixed’.

Two athletes from the same team will attempt a single boulder. Therefore, there might be up to four athletes of the same team on stage at the same time.

The athletes can discuss, share betas and organise their time among themselves, with a maximum time of five minutes. There is a strong element of cooperation for each boulder.

After the two men and two women have completed their two boulders, the final ‘mixed’ boulder will be climbed by one man and one woman who will be selected by the coach.

The maximum possible score for each boulder is 50 points (Two Tops in two attempts) with a total round score of 250 points (Ten tops from ten attempts).

The competition will be conducted with a flash format with no isolation conditions applied.

The stronger team - based on previous rounds and/or ranking - will start last.

LEAD

Qualification will have the six teams with the top four scoring teams progressing to the Final.

Lead scoring

Two routes will be available for each round.

One man and one woman from each team must climb each route. The coach will allocate two athletes (one man and one woman) to climb on Route 1 and two athletes (one man and one woman) to climb on Route 2, and also decide which athlete will climb the route first.

The competition will be conducted with a flash format with no isolation conditions applied. Therefore, athletes can share information and opinion even after climbing the route, with their teammates.

The stronger team - based on previous rounds and/or ranking - will start last.

The total score of the team will be given by adding together the score of each athlete - the “plus” will award 0.5 points.

The maximum time allocated for each athlete is six minutes.

GENERAL INFORMATION

There will be a winning team in Boulder and a winning team in Lead – the two are separate, standalone competitions and are not added together at the end, meaning two sets of prize money - which are as follows:

1st ranked Team
10 000€

2nd ranked Team
6 000€

3rd ranked Team
4 000€

RESULTS

All the results can be found at https://ifsc.hopp.to/ngfresults

WHERE TO WATCH

All elimination heat and final rounds in Fukuoka will be live streamed on the IFSC YouTube channel, with restrictions that may apply according to the territory.

News and updates about the event will be available on the IFSC website and across the Federation’s digital channels: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Threads, TikTok, X, and exclusively for the Chinese audience, Douyin, Weibo, and Xiaohongshu.