Sport climbing

Sport climbing (or bolted climbing) is a type of free climbing in the sport of rock climbing where the lead climber clips their rope — via a quickdraw — into pre-drilled in-situ bolts for their protection as they ascend the route. Sport climbing differs from the riskier and more demanding traditional climbing where the lead climber must also find places into which temporary protection equipment can be inserted as they ascend the route.
Sport climbing dates from the early 1980s when leading French rock climbers wanted to climb blanker face climbing routes that offered none of the cracks into which temporary protection equipment could be inserted. 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, which is in contrast with aid climbing) that is 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 find places into which temporary climbing protection equipment can be inserted while as they ascend the route — and thus sport climbing is a safer and less physically demanding way to ascend a climbing route. Additionally, sport climbing differs from free solo climbing where no climbing protection is used whatsoever.
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".
Sport climbing developed the redpoint as the definition of what constitutes a first free ascent (FFA), which became the definition of an FFA for all climbing disciplines. Redpointing allows for previously controversial techniques of hangdogging, headpointing, and pinkpointing (in competition lead climbing — the sport climbing component of competition climbing — and in extreme sport climbing, the quickdraws are pre-clipped to the bolts for simplicity, which is known as pinkpointing).
By the early 1980s, the leading rock climbers were beginning to reach the limits of the existing traditional climbing protection equipment. They looked to climb the blanker face routes that did not have the usual cracks and fissures that are needed in which to place traditional climbing protection. 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. These became known as "sport climbing routes" (i.e. there was none of the associated risks of traditional climbing, it was a purely sporting endeavor), with early examples such as Pichenibule 7b+ (5.12c) in 1980. 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 5.12b (7b), and Chain Reaction 5.12c (7b+) 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 Marc Le Menestrel [fr] and Antoine Le Menestrel [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. Eventually, these sport climbers began to push new grade milestones far above traditional climbing grades, and the use of bolts on natural rock surfaces became more accepted in outdoor climbing areas across America and Europe.
The significantly safer aspect of sport climbing over traditional climbing led to rapid development in competition climbing in the 1980s, where competition lead climbing events were held on bolted routes. Climbing noted the importance of events such as the 1988 International Sport Climbing Championship at Snowbird, Utah, for introducing leading European sport climbers such as Edlinger and Jean-Baptiste Tribout to leading American traditional climbers such as Ron Kauk and John Bachar. 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.
Debates remain about the ethics of attaching permanent metal bolts on natural outdoor rock, which is also related to the broader clean climbing movement. Many climbing areas—particularly in Continental Europe (for example notable crags such as Oliana in Spain, and Ceuse in France)—have become fully bolted. However, many others remain emphatically non-bolted, such as Clogwyn Du'r Arddu in the United Kingdom, where only traditional climbing techniques are allowed, and attempts to make even very dangerous routes a little safer with even singular bolts (e.g. Indian Face) have been undone.
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 bolting-related ethical climbing 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. On complex sport climbing routes that don't follow a straight line, the alignment and lengths of quickdraws used are important considerations to avoid rope drag.
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. The most dominant systems for grading sport climbing routes are the French system (e.g. ... 6b, 6c, 7a, 7b, 7c, ...), which is also called French sport grading, and the American system (e.g. ... 5.9, 5.10a, 5.10b, 5.10c, 5.10d, 5.11a, ...). The UIAA system (e.g. ... VII, VIII, IX, X, ...) is popular in Germany and central Europe. The Australian (or Ewbank) system (e.g. ... , 23, 24, 25, 26, ...) is also used.
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, ...). French sport-grades can be confused with French "Font" boulder grades, the only difference being 'capitalization'.
As an example of how sport and boulder grades are used on sport climbing routes, this is Adam Ondra describing his 2017 redpoint of Silence, the first-ever sport climb with a sport-grade of 9c (French), which is the same as 5.15d (American) or XII+ (UIAA):
Since the development of sport climbing in the early 1980s, all of the subsequent grade milestones (i.e. the next levels of hardest technical difficulty) in rock climbing have been set by sport climbers. German climber Wolfgang Güllich raised sport climbing grades from 8b (5.13d) in 1984 with Kanal im Rücken to 9a (5.14d) in 1991 with Action Directe. American climber Chris Sharma dominated sport climbing development in the decade after his ground-breaking ascent of Realization/Biographie at 9a+ (5.15a) in 2001 and Jumbo Love at 9b (5.15b) in 2008. Czech climber Adam Ondra took the mantle of the world's strongest sport climber from Sharma by freeing Change [fr] in 2012 and La Dura Dura in 2013, both at 9b+ (5.15c). In 2017, Ondra freed Silence, the first-ever sport climb at 9c (5.15d).
Female sport climbing was dominated in the 1980s by American climber Lynn Hill and French climber Catherine Destivelle who set new female grade milestones and also competed against each other in the first climbing competitions. Spanish climber Josune Bereziartu dominated the setting of new grade milestones in female sport climbing in the late 1990s and early 2000s; her 2005 redpoint of Bimbaluna at 9a/9a+ was only a half-notch behind the highest male sport climbing route at the time, which was Realization/Biographie at 9a+. By 2017, Austrian climber Angela Eiter had broken into the 9b (5.15b) grade with La Planta de Shiva, and in 2020 made the first female free ascent of a 9b (5.15b) with Madame Ching. In 2020–21, Laura Rogora and Julia Chanourdie also climbed 9b (5.15b) sport routes; when only a handful of male climbers have climbed at 9b+ (5.15c), and only Adam Ondra at 9c (5.15d).
Some of the strongest-ever sport climbers were also some of the strongest-ever competition climbers, such as Adam Ondra, Lynn Hill, and Angela Eiter. However, some of the other strongest-ever sport climbers either largely ignored competition climbing, or retired early from it to focus on non-competition sport climbing, such as Wolfgang Gullich, Chris Sharma, and Josune Bereziartu.