During the 129th IOC Session in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2016, the International Olympic Committee added Sport Climbing to the programme of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. From 3 to 6 August 2021, a total of 40 Sport Climbing athletes - 20 men and 20 women - competed in a Combined event at Tokyo's Aomi Urban Sports Park, featuring all three disciplines of the sport: Boulder, Lead, and Speed, in one event.
History was made at the IFSC World Championships 2019 in Hachioji, Japan, as Sport Climbing’s top athletes went head-to-head in the first qualifying event. At the conclusion of the competition, eight of the highest placed athletes per gender, with a maximum of two per country, had earned a quota place for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020.
The second qualification event took place in Toulouse/Tournefeuille, France, where the top 20 athletes per gender in the Combined rankings competed for the next six quota spots per gender for the Games.
In 2020, a further eight athletes qualified through continental championships in Los Angeles, USA, in Moscow, Russia, in Cape Town, South Africa, and in Sydney, Australia. Two athletes per continent qualified through each championship: one man and one woman.
The final four Olympic positions were assigned based on the athletes' rankings at the 2019 World Championships, due to the cancellation of the Asian Championships as a result of COVID-19, and the reallocation of two unused quota places after Sport Climbing received no Tripartite Commission applications.