Climbing is fast becoming one of the world’s most popular sports. Spurred by inspirational Olympians and superstar climbers like Alex Honnold, more and more people are heading to their local climbing gym.
Alongside its health benefits and addictive nature, climbing entices people back with a community-driven, inclusive atmosphere. Climbing gyms are proud hubs of community and friendship. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that more and more people with disabilities are giving paraclimbing a go, building communities on the wall and in the wilderness.
What is paraclimbing?
The term paraclimbing covers a broad range of disciplines. Put simply, it describes any form of indoor or outdoor climbing performed by someone with a disability. It can be casual or competitive and can manifest in multiple climbing formats, be it lead climbing, bouldering, or another style.
In June 2024, the International Paralympic Committee announced their decision to include paraclimbing in the 2028 Paralympics in Los Angeles, launching the sport into the mainstream.
To find out more about this high-octane pursuit, I caught up with three-time paraclimbing world champion and former Team GB athlete Matthew Phillips.
Matthew was born without his lower arm from the elbow down. The Hampshire native began paraclimbing aged 13 and fell in love with the sport.
“What I personally love about climbing is the creativity of it all. That’s something that really drew it to me,” Matthew tells me.
“There’s a lot of thinking and planning, you have to constantly be using your brain to do stuff. It’s obviously got a very strong physical element but the mental side is something that really appealed to me.”
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Competition paraclimbing
There have been climbers with disabilities for as long as the sport has been around, but the term paraclimbing was coined in 2003 at the first international paraclimbing competition.
Eight years later, the first paraclimbing world championship was organized by climbing’s governing body, the International Federation of Sport Climbing, and held in Arco, Italy. In a ground-breaking first, 64 athletes with a variety of disabilities took to the wall in speed and lead climbing competitions.
The sport has expanded in the years since, welcoming climbers with a variety of disabilities to compete in multiple classifications.
In professional competitions, paraclimbers are divided into three broad classes: “blind sport class”, “amputees” and “limited reach, power, and stability”. From here, competitors are further categorized depending on the severity of their disability.
Matthew is categorized as an amputee, in the AU2 category.
“AU2 stands for upper arm, the 2 bit indicates that I have an elbow. There are three categories in AU,” he explains.
“AU1 is nothing above the elbow, so that in effect is not having an arm at all. AU2 is below the elbow, that’s the largest category and the most common, and that can range anywhere from just past the elbow to down to where your wrist is. AU3 is a relatively new one. It’s people who are missing certain fingers. They need to be missing four fingers to qualify.”
In total, there are 10 different sub-categories, covering a wide range of physical disabilities.
Once classified, climbers compete in lead climbing competitions, where they race to the top of a climbing wall, clipping their rope to checkpoints as they ascend.
Athletes in the blind sport class rely on instructions from a sight guide on the ground, who provides verbal instructions and describes the route. Visually impaired climbers also rely on feeling their way up the wall, using tactile feedback from various holds.
Climbers in the limited reach, power, and stability class rely on large, easy-to-reach holds, using static movements to power themselves upwards.
The professional paraclimbing competition schedule varies each year but generally consists of four or five competitions held across the globe in the spring, summer, and autumn. The 2025 schedule includes three world cup competitions and one world championship, held in Seoul, South Korea, in late September.
These events are fiercely competitive, pitting the world’s best paraclimbers against each other in cut-throat knockout rounds.
Matthew knows the competition world well. In 2016, he burst onto the international scene as a fresh-faced 15-year-old before winning three world championships in four years, in 2018, 2019, and 2021.
At the top of his game, Matthew took a prolonged break from paraclimbing after the 2021 world championships in Moscow. He’s currently focused on route-setting and coaching but hinted at a potential return to the professional arena before the 2028 Paralympic games.
“The idea of going to the Paralympics is a dream I’ve had since I was a kid,” he explains.
“It’s always there as this big iconic goal. The idea of going for that experience is definitely something I’m intrigued by and something I’m thinking a lot about. I’m airing towards a return before that.”
Amateur paraclimbing
In tandem with non-disabled climbing, para-climbing for pleasure has exploded in popularity in recent years. araclimbing for pleasure has exploded in popularity in recent years. Multiple climbing gyms in the U.S. and abroad are now training their staff on how to supervise and coach climbers with disabilities. Many are also investing in inclusive climbing equipment, like standing frames and adapted harnesses, which help climbers with paralysis scale the wall.
Paraclimbers can also head into nature. Whether you're in Boulder, Colorado or the Scottish Highlands, amateur paraclimbers can be found sending all manner of difficult boulder problems in the great outdoors.
Indoors or out, climbing in all forms boasts a tight-knit community spirit, which is especially clear in the paraclimbing world.
"That community spirit is something that's really important to me; it's something that climbing has got in abundance," explains Matthew.
“It's very strong in the paraclimbing community, but it is also linked to the climbing community.
"The encouragement you get at competitions, the meet-ups we do, it's very strong."
If you have a disability and want to give paraclimbing a go, check in with your local climbing gym to see if they're able to offer a supported session.
Governing bodies like USA Climbing also offer climbers support and guidance on how to begin competitive paraclimbing.
Matthew climbs in the Instinct VSR climbing shoes from Scarpa. Check out today's best deal below.
