Sport climbing

Sport climbing, also known as bolted climbing, is a type of rock climbing that involves clipping a rope that is attached to the climber into permanent anchors that have been permanently fixed into the rock for the climber's protection. In this type of climbing, the climber may also climb for shorter distances with a crash pad underneath for protection. In contrast to this, conventional climbing requires climbers to set detachable protection at various points along the route they are ascending. The skills of lead climbing and toproping are often required for sport climbing. However, free soloing and deep-water soloing—both of which entail climbing without any protection—are occasionally allowed on sport routes.

As a result of the fact that sport climbing routes are not required to adhere to the lines of conventional climbing route lines, sport climbing routes often take more direct courses up crags. This aspect, in addition to the lack of any need to install protection during the climb (for example, the sport climber simply clips into pre-installed bolts along the climb), results in different styles of climbing when compared to traditional rock climbing. These styles are sport rock climbing and traditional rock climbing, respectively.

The sport of sport climbing was first introduced to the Olympic Games in the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan in 2020. Prior to that, it was evaluated at the Summer Youth Olympics in 2018.

A 'line' up the rock face is followed by pre-placed bolts that make up a sport climbing route. Sport climbs may be as short as a few metres or as long as a whole rope length of sixty metres (two hundred feet), in the case of multi-pitch climbs. The routes might have a limited number of bolts or a substantial number of them.

A climber is considered to be leading a sport climb when they ascend a route with a rope attached to their harness and a belayer taking care of the end of the rope that is dangling free. The climber must clip the rope through the hanging end of each quickdraw before attaching it to the next bolt along the route. This is done after the climber reaches each bolt along the route. The climber is now protected from injury in the event that they fall thanks to this bolt. Climbers on sport routes generally find a two-bolt anchor at the very top of the route, which may be used to return them to the ground or to an earlier rappel point.

Climbers may focus on the difficulty of the movements rather than the placement of protection or the potential repercussions of a fall on sport routes since sport climbing does not require climbers to employ protection.

Traditional climbing is different from sport climbing in terms of the kinds of protection that are used and where they are placed. Traditional climbing makes extensive use of protection that may be removed, such as cams and nuts, and tends to make less use of protection that is pre-placed. Although multi-pitch routes are not common in sport climbing, single-pitch routes are the norm in this discipline. Long multi-pitch routes may not have pre-placed anchors for a variety of reasons, including those related to ethics, economics, and logistics.