Kai Lightner
Kai Lightner (born August 21, 1999) is an American competitive sport climber from Fayetteville, North Carolina, who also works to make climbing more diverse and welcoming.
When he was six, he climbed a 50-foot flagpole. A passerby gave his mother the address of a local climbing gym. Four years later, he won his first youth national championship.
In 2014, Lightner won the Youth World Championship in the 14–15 age group in New Caledonia, becoming the first Youth American Lead World Champion since 1995. In 2015, at age 15, he won the Open Lead Climbing National Championship in his first year of eligibility. In 2017, he won Lead Open Nationals in Denver. He has earned 10 Youth National Championship titles and is a five-time Youth World Championship medalist.
Lightner founded Climbing for Change (C4C) in 2020 to create more opportunities for people of color in climbing gyms and outdoors. He has said climbing can become more inclusive and less tied to perceptions of being a “white sport.”
He was featured in Reel Rock 11 (2016) in the film Young Guns with Ashima Shiraishi. After finishing high school as valedictorian, he began college at Babson in 2020 and continues his nonprofit work. In 2025, he was featured in Reel Rock 19.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 18:31 (CET).