Short answers, pulled from the story.
Rock climbing is a sport involving ascending routes on natural rock or artificial walls. Free climbing uses no mechanical aids for upward movement, relying solely on the climber's strength and technique, whereas aid climbing uses mechanical devices to help the climber ascend. The first free ascent of a route, called an FFA, is considered more prestigious than a standard first ascent made with aid.
Rock climbing debuted as a full Olympic-medal sport at the 2020 Summer Olympics. The IOC announced the decision in 2016, and the IFSC, which took over governance of competition climbing in 2007, has run the sport's major international events including the annual Climbing World Cup and the biennial Climbing World Championships.
The main types are bouldering (short routes up to around 5 m with crash-pad protection only), single-pitch climbing (up to one rope length, the most common lead-climbing format), multi-pitch and big wall climbing (routes over 1000 m requiring hanging belays and complex rope systems), and aid climbing (using mechanical devices to assist upward progress). Sport climbing uses pre-drilled bolts for protection, while traditional climbing uses removable gear the climber inserts as they ascend.
Alex Honnold made the first free solo ascent of Freerider on El Capitan in 2017. His climb, which was done with no rope or protection of any kind, became the subject of the 2018 Oscar-winning documentary film Free Solo.
The French numerical system and the American YDS system are the most dominant worldwide for lead climbing. For bouldering, the French Font system and the American V-grade system are standard, and both grades are often quoted together. All three lead-climbing systems can be exactly aligned: for example, Silence is graded 9c in French, 5.15d in American, and XII+ in the UIAA system.
The debate centers on whether pre-drilled bolts, used in sport climbing for protection, alter the nature and challenge of a route. Reinhold Messner's 1971 essay The Murder of the Impossible argued bolted protection diminished mountaineering. In the United States during the 1980s and 1990s, disputes over bolts on traditional routes escalated into what climbers called the bolt wars, with some activists physically removing bolts from routes. The debate continues today, extending to the retro-bolting of existing traditional routes.