USA Climbing Partners with KAYA for New Competition Format

USA Climbing announced today a partnership with KAYA to deliver a new competition format.

As previously announced, USA Climbing’s fall bouldering series will be going "virtual". As USA Climbing’s exclusive digital competition partner, members will use the KAYA climbing app to compete in Youth, Collegiate, and Paraclimbing events over two-week periods over the course of the Qualifying Season for each respective category allowing competitors to qualify for the next round of competitions. The Youth Qualifying Series competitions will begin November 2nd followed by the Collegiate and Paraclimbing Qualifying Series.

"We are extremely excited to partner with KAYA to immediately deliver competition for our climbers this season while at the same time bringing innovation that will engage an even larger audience in the future. With the COVID-19 pandemic continuing to persist and our climbing gyms around the country in various stages of operation, we determined that we must come up with a new way to run our Qualifying Events this season or be susceptible to full cancellation as we experienced in the Sport and Speed season," said Marc Norman, USA Climbing CEO. "Partnering with KAYA provided an opportunity for our members to qualify staying closer to home, minimizing exposure to large groups, creating a consistent competition with verification while also allowing for greater access for all members and ensuring minimal impact on climbing gyms. We are thrilled to partner with KAYA and excited to welcome athletes back to competition climbing."

The KAYA platform allows climbers to log climbs within the gym. Participating gyms will designate specific boulders as part of the USA Climbing program. Logging climbs on KAYA will amass points on a real time leaderboard, which will be verified and processed by USA Climbing to deliver the official Regional results. KAYA supports video logging and uploads to allow climbers to submit video evidence of their sending sprees, which means climbers from all over the world will get to enjoy the best of the action. To learn more about KAYA, please click here.

"KAYA is here to help every climber progress. In partnering with USA Climbing, we will be able to empower the next generation of climbers with the cutting edge of data and technology in the climbing world. This is as much about working with the very best of our sport as it is about inspiring the whole climbing community," said Kimberly Ang, KAYA Chief Strategy Officer.

For climbing gyms interested in hosting a USA Climbing sanctioned event this year, please contact bree@usaclimbing.org. For gyms beginning the process of coming onto the KAYA platform, please begin at www.kayaclimb.com/usacpartner.

Competitors must have a valid USA Climbing membership and should get familiar with KAYA in advance of the Qualifying Series by downloading it here.

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