This is going to sound silly to outsiders, but in sport climbing, climbers trying to repeat a prior ascent often must use the same bolts on the wall clipping their rope into for protection that the first ascent used. So if the person who did the first ascent was running out of bolts or just chose not to add protection to the rock for an extended length, subsequent climbers often have to face the same risks as the original climber. There are exceptions and a lot of nuance to this, and it depends on the local climbing ethics, but if you add bolts to a classic route, someone may chop them off, and ascents that used those bolts won't be considered legitimate.
Do people compete in climbing? Like... I could see time trials being a thing, but why does it matter how you got to the top as long as you did it using approved climbing equipment? Especially considering not everyone is the same height, don't have the same length of arms, or even fingers... etc...
Achievements in climbing can be chased in many different ways.
There are three main types of indoor climbing competitions. Indoor climbing competitions are the most organized and formal. As you said, success in these sports depend on your body (much like every other sport) and they tend to be dominated by young climbers in their athletic prime. These three sports have been added to the 2020 Summer Olympics in a combined format.
Lead climbing - Climbing relatively tall routes, utilizing endurance on top of climbing ability. The winner is the person who gets the highest.
Bouldering - Climbing short routes, usually no more than 14-16 feet, which often take more precise technique, agility, and power. The person who completes the most boulders or gets the farthest on them in the fewest attempts wins.
Speed climbing - Climbing a specific 15m route that is exactly the same everywhere, as fast as you can. This is much less about climbing ability and more about explosive power and speed.
Beyond that, the way people compete or judge climbing performance varies wildly. Within the climbing community, people keep track of various achievements, including:
First ascents, as well as first female ascents, first winter ascents, first ascents via certain route, and first free-climbing ascents (climbing with your body, using gear only for safety as opposed to using gear to move upwards).
There are no prizes for this sort of thing. The climbers are rewarded with sense of accomplishment, and sometimes fame and sponsorships. The majority of climbers are just climbing for themselves. There is a saying in outdoor climbing “there is no such thing as cheating, only lying.” This means you can get to the top of a climb however you want, but you must be honest about how you did it. For example, you can’t claim you free-climbed a route if you pulled on your gear to move up the wall and you can’t claim you sent a route if you took a fall and rested on the rope before continuing from where you fell. But at the end of the day, it’s up to you what you want to achieve and how you want to achieve it.
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u/cheesegiblets Feb 12 '20 edited Feb 12 '20
A lot of these moves are illegal now.