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Type of rock climbing
a type of rock climbing

Sport climbing (or bolted climbing) is a type of free climbing in rock climbing where the lead climber clips into pre drilled permanent bolts for their protection while ascending a route. Sport climbing differs from the riskier traditional climbing where the lead climber has to insert temporary protection equipment while ascending. Sport climbing dates from the early 1980s when leading French rock climbers wanted to climb routes that offered no cracks or fissures in which to insert the temporary protection equipment used in traditional climbing. While bolting natural rock faces was controversial—and remains a focus of debate in climbing ethics—sport climbing grew rapidly in popularity; all subsequent grade milestones in rock climbing came from sport climbing. The safer discipline of sport climbing also led to the rapid growth in competition climbing, which made its Olympic debut at the 2020 Summer Olympics. While competition climbing consists of three distinct rock climbing disciplines of lead climbing (the bolted sport climbing element), bouldering (no bolts needed), and speed climbing (also not bolted, but instead top roped), it is sometimes confusingly referred to as "sport climbing".

Sport climbing is a form of free climbing (i. e. no artificial or mechanical device can be used to aid progression, unlike with aid climbing), performed in pairs, where the lead climber clips into pre drilled permanently fixed bolts for their protection while ascending. The lead climber uses quickdraws to clip into the bolts. The second climber (or belayer), removes the quickdraws as they climb the route after the lead climber has reached the top. Sport climbing differs from traditional climbing, which requires the lead climber to insert temporary climbing protection equipment as they ascend, making sport climbing safer. Confusingly, the sport of competition climbing, which consists of three distinct rock climbing disciplines: lead climbing (the bolted sport climbing element), bouldering (no bolts needed), and speed climbing (also not bolted), is sometimes referred to as "sport climbing". Redpointing allows for previously controversial techniques of hangdogging, headpointing, In France, leading climbers such as Patrick Berhault and Patrick Edlinger began to pre drill permanent bolts into the pocket marked limestone walls of Buoux and Verdon Gorge for their protection. Around the same time at Smith Rock State Park in the United States, American climber Alan Watts also started to place pre drilled bolts into routes, creating the first American sport climbs of Watts Tot , and Chain Reaction in 1983. Sport climbing was rapidly adopted in Europe, and particularly in France and Germany by the then emerging professional rock climbers such as German climber Wolfgang Güllich and French brothers fr and fr. The United Kingdom was more reluctant to allow bolting on natural rock surfaces, and early British sport climbers such as Jerry Moffatt and Ben Moon were forced to move to France and Germany. The bolting of external natural rock surfaces was also initially controversial in the US, although American sport climbing pioneer Alan Watts later recounted that American traditional climbers were as much against the "redpointing" techniques of sport climbers (i. e. continually practicing new routes before making the first free ascent), as they were against the use of bolts. By the end of the 1990s, the UIAA, and latterly the International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC), was regulating and organizing major international climbing competitions, including the annual IFSC Climbing World Cup, and the biennial IFSC Climbing World Championships. Competitive climbing includes sport climbing (which is competition lead climbing), and also competition bouldering and competition speed climbing. In the United Kingdom, the British Mountaineering Council (BMC) maintains a register of outdoor climbing areas that are suitable for bolting, and those which are to remain bolt free; in addition, the BMC offers guidance on related ethical issues such as retro bolting.

Sport climbing requires far less rock climbing equipment than traditional climbing as the protection is already pre drilled into the route. Aside from the standard equipment of lead climbing (e. g. a rope, belay device, harness, and climbing shoes), the only important other important pieces of equipment are quickdraws to clip the rope into the bolts without generating friction.

The pre drilled bolts will degrade over time—particularly in coastal areas due to salt—and eventually, all sport climbs need to be re fitted after several years. The highest quality titanium bolts are too expensive to use regularly, and the next highest quality stainless steel bolts have an expected lifespan of circa 20–25 years (the cheaper plated stainless steel bolts have a shorter span); and in 2015, the American Alpine Club established an "anchor replacement fund" to help replace the bolts on America's estimated 60,000 sport climbing routes.

As sport climbing removes the danger of a route by using bolts, sport routes are graded solely for their technical difficulty (i. e how hard are the physical movements to ascend the route), and unlike traditional climbing routes, do not require an additional grade to reflect risk.

Even though the grading of sport routes is simpler than traditional routes, there is the issue of how to compare a short route with one very hard move, with a longer route with a sustained sequence of slightly easier moves. Most of the above grading systems are based on the "overall" difficulty of the route, and thus both routes could have the same sport grade. As a result of this, it has become common for the advanced sport climbing routes (e. g. Realization, La Dura Dura, and La Rambla) to describe the hardest moves by their bouldering grade, which is either the French "Font" system (e. g. , 7B, 7C, 8A, 8B, ) or the American "V scale" system (e. g. , V9, V10, V11, V12, ).

Statement of Youth, a 2019 documentary film about the birth of sport climbing in Britain in the 1980s featuring Jerry Moffatt and Ben Moon. Reel Rock 7, the 2012 edition of the Reel Rock series with Chris Sharma and Adam Ondra's famous collaboration on La Dura Dura Dosage Volume I, the 2002 edition of Dosage Series with Chris Sharma's historic first free ascent of Realization/Biographie .