Sport climbing (or Bolted climbing) is a form of rock climbing that relies on permanent anchors (or bolts), permanently fixed into the rock for climber protection, in which a rope that is attached to the climber is clipped into the anchors to arrest a fall; it can also involve climbing short distances with a crash pad underneath as protection. This is in contrast to traditional climbing where climbers must place removable protection as they climb. Sport climbing usually involves lead climbing and toproping techniques, but free solo and deep-water solo (i.e. no protection) climbing on sport routes is also sometimes possible.
Since sport climbing routes do not need to follow traditional climbing route lines where protection can be placed into natural features (e.g. cracks), they tend to follow more direct lines up crags. This aspect, in addition to the lack of any need to install protection during the climb (e.g. the sport climber just clips into pre-installed bolts along the climb), results in different styles of climbing between sport rock climbing and traditional rock climbing.
Sport climbing made its Olympic debut at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan, and was previously tested at the 2018 Summer Youth Olympics.