Climbing New Zealand runs a national competition circuit across three disciplines — Bouldering, Lead, and Speed. Events are held throughout the season at climbing walls around the country.
Competition calendar
The full competition calendar, including upcoming events and registration links, is on the CNZ events page.
Age categories
These categories apply to CNZ events, excluding schools events, for the 2026–27 season (1 September 2026 – 30 April 2027).
Your category is fixed for the whole season by the age you reach during 2027. Take 2027, subtract the birth year, and find the row.
| Category | Born | Age at 31 Dec 2026 | Age at 31 Dec 2027 (sets the category) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Masters | 1991 or earlier | 35 or older | 36 or older |
| Open | 2010 or earlier | 16 or older | 17 or older |
| Para | 2010 or earlier | 16 or older | 17 or older |
| U19 | 2009 or 2010 | 16 to 17 | 17 to 18 |
| U17 | 2011 or 2012 | 14 to 15 | 15 to 16 |
| U15 | 2013 or 2014 | 12 to 13 | 13 to 14 |
| U13 | 2015 or 2016 | 10 to 11 | 11 to 12 |
| U11 | 2017 or later | 9 or under | 10 or under |
These are ages at the end of each year. At an event in October or November, a climber is up to a year younger again.
U11 climbers can enter CNZ events but are not eligible for Youth team selection. Para climbers enter the Para category in a given discipline rather than the Open category for that discipline.
Why 2027, when the competitions are in 2026?
Most federations run a season inside a single calendar year, and World Climbing does the same, so their season and their categories carry the same number. Ours don’t line up that way. The CNZ season opens in September and closes in April, sitting across two years, and we name it for the year it leads into.
The events from September 2026 select the climbers who go overseas in 2027. A U15 picked at Nationals this October travels to the Australian Youth Nationals as a U15 the following year. So we enter them here in the category they’ll be in when they get there.
These are the World Climbing categories for 2027, used a season early. U13 and U11 are ours. World Climbing doesn’t run categories that young, so we extended the same rule downwards.
“My child is only 9 in October. Why are they in U13?”
The maths is right, and it does look strange. A climber born in late 2016 is still nine years old at Nationals, and the table above shows U13 starting at 10, because that table counts to the end of December. On the day of the competition they can be younger again.
The number in the category name isn’t the age on the day. It’s the age reached during 2027.
What decides a fair field is who your child climbs against, and that doesn’t shift. A climber born in 2016 competes against 2015 and 2016 climbers at every event, all season, whatever the group is called.
Why not just use age on the day?
It’s the obvious alternative, and it causes three problems.
A birthday would move a climber between categories mid-season, sometimes between the qualifier and the final. Birth years hold from September through April, so series standings stay comparable.
We’d stop matching World Climbing, Sport Climbing Australia and nearly everyone else. A climber selected here has to be in the same category when they land overseas.
Selection would break. A team picked in October for events a year later would turn up in the wrong group.
Not sure where your climber sits? Email us before you enter. Much easier now than on the day.
Competition rules
CNZ competitions follow World Climbing (formerly IFSC) rules. See the Competition Rules page for details.