Milan's CAI Climbing Section Is Sending Athletes to the World Stage — and the City Is Finally Paying Attention

Three competitive climbers affiliated with the Club Alpino Italiano — Sezione di Milano, headquartered on Via Silvio Pellico in the city centre, have qualified for the IFSC Climbing World Cup circuit this summer, the best single-season haul the section has posted since the sport entered the Olympic programme. The youngest of the three, a 19-year-old lead climber from the Porta Romana neighbourhood, finished seventh at the Italian national championships in Bologna in late May. That result, combined with two podium finishes at the Coppa Italia series, triggered automatic World Cup selection.

The timing matters. Competitive climbing is still riding the wave of its Olympic debut at Tokyo 2020, and the Paris 2024 Games — which separated the combined discipline into distinct lead, speed and bouldering events — gave Italian federations fresh incentive to invest in young talent. With the 2027 World Championships provisionally assigned to a European host, national federations are racing to identify athletes who can peak over the next 18 months. Milan's CAI section has quietly become one of the better talent pipelines in Lombardy, and this summer's results are the proof.

The Infrastructure Behind the Results

None of this happened without brick and chalk. The section trains primarily at two indoor walls in the city: the Climbing Planet facility in the Certosa district, which installed a new 14-metre lead wall in February 2026 at a reported cost of around €180,000, and the older but well-regarded wall at the Palestre Comunali complex near Piazzale Lotto. The CAI section negotiates block-booking rates at both venues, with membership covering roughly 40 weekly training hours split across bouldering and rope disciplines. Annual youth membership sits at €85, a figure the section's coaching staff frequently cite when arguing the sport remains accessible against the backdrop of rising costs across Milanese leisure facilities.

The section also runs a weekend programme that buses teenage athletes out to the limestone crags at Lecco, 50 kilometres north of the city on the eastern arm of Lake Como, at least twice a month between March and October. Outdoor lead climbing on natural rock, coaches argue, builds the route-reading instincts that indoor walls alone cannot replicate. All three of the recently selected World Cup athletes went through that Lecco programme as juniors.

What the Numbers Say — and What Comes Next

Italian climbing's growth is measurable. The Federazione Arrampicata Sportiva Italiana reported 48,000 licensed competitive members at the close of 2025, up from roughly 31,000 in 2020. Lombardy accounts for the largest regional share, approximately 19 percent, and Milan's various affiliated clubs contribute the biggest single chunk of that. The indoor climbing market in the city has expanded accordingly: four new commercial walls have opened within the Milan ring road since January 2024, with a fifth — a 2,000-square-metre facility near the Scalo Farini redevelopment zone in Isola — due to open by September.

For the three CAI athletes now preparing for World Cup competition, the immediate calendar is punishing. The IFSC circuit resumes in Innsbruck in late August, followed by a bouldering round in Briançon in September. Performance at those two events will determine whether any of them accumulate enough ranking points to target a European Championship qualifier in the spring.

For Milanese climbers looking to follow the same path, the CAI Sezione di Milano holds open enrolment sessions on the first Saturday of each month at Via Silvio Pellico; the next one falls on 5 July. The section is also running a five-day outdoor introduction camp at the Lecco crags in late August, open to climbers aged 14 and above, priced at €220 including transport and instruction. Given that three of the section's own athletes will be competing internationally within weeks of that camp, the instructors may arrive with some fresh material to share.