7/30/10 - A Lead Climbing World Cup will take place in the United States for the first time in about two decades in the fall of 2011, according to a provisional schedule of the International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC). Boulder, Colorado, will host the world’s best competition climbers October 8 and 9, 2011. The comp will be held at Movement Climbing + Fitness, Boulder's newest and largest climbing gym.

Canada, meanwhile, will host a Bouldering World Cup on May 27 and 28, 2011. The competition will take place in Canmore, Alberta, one week before the bouldering comp in Vail, Colorado, at the Teva Mountain Games. The Teva event has hosted a Bouldering World Cup for the past three years.

The expanded schedule will be a huge opportunity for U.S. sport climbers and boulderers to compete against the world’s best, as few North Americans have traveled in recent years to Europe or Asia to join the full World Cup circuit.

The IFSC’s provisional schedule contains a whopping 14 World Cups in sport climbing and nine in bouldering, a significant increase in the competition calendar. The IFSC will formally adopt the 2011 schedule in mid-September.

Sources: Ifsc-climbing.org, Keith Ferguson, Anne-Worley Moelter