The 2007 Climbing World Championships (CWCH) will take place Sept. 17th –23rd in Avilés, Spain. The CWCH is the closest thing competition climbers have to an Olympic sized event.

The event only happens every other year and combines three disciplines under one roof. The 517 bouldering, lead and speed climbers from 52 countries will vie for the title of worlds best climber and boulderer.

The IFSC scheduled Chief Setter for the event is Laurent Boudier (FR). However the CWCHo7 website is alluding that Spanish Chief Setter Patxi Arocena and “his team of eight devoted route setters” will be in charge of separating the competitors.

This discrepancy is very interesting due to the IFSC rule that states that no setter from the host country, in this case Spain, will be allowed to be Chief.

Either way, this comp is the biggest climbing event in the world and the setters will have to bring out all their tricks and skills to match the experience of the heavily stacked field.

The setting crew has almost two weeks to set and tweak these world class problems and routes.

The Venue

The walls were designed by Leo Gilardoni and built by leading Spanish wall manufacture Top30, which is the official wall supplier to the Spanish federation. The designers have built the largest bouldering wall ever to be featured in an international event. Ten multi colored boulders covering over 118 feet wide (36m) and 11.5 ft tall (3.5m) offer an awesome stage to test the best boulderers in the world.

The speed walls, standing at 49ft tall (15m) and 23ft wide (7m) were built to meet the new IFSC speed climbing world record specifications.

The lead walls are an exact copy of the walls built for the Avilés world cup in 2003. They feature a combination of classic flat, comp panels with an incongruous section of “real rock”. Measuring almost 56ft (17m) high with significant overhanging terrain which gives the setters a possible 82ft (25m) to pump out the climbers.

Live Streaming

You can watch all the action as it happens by visiting the Block Digital website. Block Digital will stream live coverage from the last three days of competition, which are basically the finals of all three disciplines.

Watch this video from the 2003 Aviles World Cup.

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