Competition climbing has been held at two editions of the Summer Olympic Games.

The inclusion was proposed by the International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC) in 2015.

[1] In September 2015, competition climbing was included in a shortlist along with baseball, softball, skateboarding, surfing, and karate to be considered for inclusion in the 2020 Summer Olympics;[2] and in June 2016, the executive board of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced that they would support the proposal to include all of the shortlisted sports in the 2020 Games.

[5] Members of the IFSC explained that they were only granted one gold medal per gender by the Olympic committee, and they did not want to exclude speed climbing.

This tactic proved to be successful as they were granted a second set of medals for the 2024 Summer Olympics, where speed climbing will be a separate event from the combined event of lead climbing and bouldering.