Identification of Parameters That Predict Sport Climbing Performance

In recent years, extreme sport-related pursuits including climbing have emerged not only as recreational activities but as competitive sports. Today, sport climbing is a rapidly developing, competitive sport included in the 2020 Olympic Games official program. Given recent developments, the understanding of which factors may influence actual climbing performance becomes critical. The present study aimed at identifying key performance parameters as perceived by experts in predicting actual lead sport climbing performance. Ten male (Mage = 28, SD = 6.6 years) expert climbers (7a+ to 8b on-sight French Rating Scale of Difficulty), who were also registered as climbing coaches, participated in semi-structured interviews.