At the recent General Assembly, the IFSC made some changes to age categories and the minimum age to compete at World Cups. As you are aware, previously athletes had to be at least 16 (Youth A) to be able to compete. It has now been announced that athletes will have to be at least 17. That means our categories will likely change in the coming season to accommodate and feed into the next IFSC season in 2025.
Youth A is currently U18 will be U19
Youth B is currently U16 and will be U17
Youth C is currently U14 and will be U15
Youth D is currently U12 and will be U13
Juniors: It is currently our understanding that the Junior category will not exist anymore.
Therefore if your Child is in their first year of Youth A, they will likely have another 2 in Youth A. If your child is in their second year of Youth A, they are likely going to have another year in Youth A.
The committee is currently working through this and will confirm this over the next few month. As an organisation we support this change as it is in line with international research into sports. To read more about this, Sport NZ has some great resources with the ‘Balance is better‘ approach.
