Rock climbing is such an activity that not only demands physical strength but also mental stability. It basically tests the climber's strength, endurance. Balance along with mental control. It is quite a difficult activity as one needs to be mentally active while performing this. A sport is basically an activity that requires a participant to perform with full endurance thereby displaying their skill and talent. It requires a person to be physically strong enough to face each and every hard situation. As per this definition of sports I think rock climbing should definitely consider as a sport.

In fact the participants are provided with the proper climbing equipments so as to climb the rock without any danger. Most of the people consider it as an activity or hobby but this can be cleared out on the fact that if certain people are genuinely indulged in climbing rock with many other participants along with their climbing equipment then this cannot be considered as a hobby.

As everyone is aware of it, rock climbing is a very strenuous activity that requires the participant to either climb the natural rock or an artificially made one. It is not a very easy sport as one should be fully aware of the climbing techniques. It is a very risky sport as well. This requires a great deal of training so as to be strong enough to face the physical exertion.

Just like every other sport has certain terms and conditions and also competes with different teams, similarly rock climbing has certain technique that is required to be followed so as to perform well. There are different styles of rock climbing such as bouldering, lead climbing, and speed climbing and so on. Based on these different styles, one team compete with another. Since sincere participation is involved in this so we have a basic reason to consider this as a sport.

There is a point that when people go to hill station they perform trekking which is also a form of rock climbing just for exploration. But this does not prove that rock climbing cannot be considered as a sport. If people play rugby or football in the park in their leisure time then we cannot just declare these two sports as an activity or hobby.

Nowadays children are given serious training for rock climbing in schools. They are made aware about this sport from their childhood itself. They are even taken to camps to make them strong enough to deal with this strenuous activity. In mountainous regions rock climbing is their everyday activity. They are trained for this and mostly people from hilly region go ahead and participate in rock climbing. It has also been decided to include rock climbing in Olympics soon. Also artificial protection is given to the climbers so as to protect them in case of any sort fall. Whereas if you look at the people living in hilly areas, they hardly bother to keep artificial protection as their backup. They are so much used to climbing that it becomes easy for them to deal with such situation.

Hence from the above mentioned reasons it should be clear enough that rock climbing is a sport that requires a person to be physically strong and mentally stable.