Also Kruder goes for 9? for Es Pontas and possibly Tokyo

Jernej Kruder came to Mallorca with no real DWS experience and immediately onsighted Weather man 8a+ with a crux 18 meters high up. Then, he started working on Es Pontas. During his five weeks on the island, he only spent one day climbing other routes, onsighting two 8as and an 8a+. Regarding the grade, about which Chris Sharma told 8a ten years ago that it is personal but anyhow agreed that it could be a 9b, Jernej seems to be of the same opinion. (c) Kerstin Helbach "I'll just stick with Chris' thoughts. This thing is so specific. For sure it's about the 9th grade, but there are so many different factors, like the dyno. If there are 200 people in the world climbing 9a, maybe just 10% of them can do it. There is a fear factor and a mind battle trying it all over again without knowing if you're able to the all the moves or not. At the moment I don't feel like superman to climb all the hardest climbs in the world, but I feel lucky to have all of this skills that you need for this route. Maybe I'm just one of few chosen guys, who can actually climb this thing." The Slovenian also said that he could not do the crazy knee drop sequence after the dyno so he found another solution. What's interesting is that in fact the runner-up in the Bouldering World Championship 2014 says that even after the big dyno and the "drop knee" part, he found several more cruxes. "So on my last 4 days I was so lucky I didn't fall even once on dyno (even though I was never sure I'm gonna do it or not). So at the end the main crux was a long move on the arete. I stuck it for 3 times already, but failed it after that move- 3 moves before jug. There is also a bit strange crux after the jug, but luckily I was very confident after doing all the hard parts." Next year, Kruder will compete as normal, which he will combine with climbing Boulders, routes, and MPs and at some point he might start training for the Olympic Games.