Bords de levres 8a+ (b) OS by Théo Blass (12)

Théo Blass (12) has onsighted Bords de lèvres (8a+) in . What’s interesting is that the 147 cm tall climber did not know the grade of the climb and placed all quickdraws. The 12-year-old thought it was 8a+ and the next day they found out that it was actually 8b in the topo. Two months ago, he became the youngest climber ever to have done a 9a. (c) Laurent Dormont


We asked his father Vlad to give some comments about the onsight and about how Théo trains.

”The onsight took about 10 minutes. Theo later joked that onsighting is so much less work than working on a hard red point. The route is a crimpy power endurance line with no rest in the hard section and no going back if you start a sequence wrong.

Theo's training is not particularly structured - during school holidays he does not train and only climbs outside. During school time he trains a couple of times a week (once at our small basement wall and once with his club - generally 1 to 2 hours per session) and he climbs outside on weekends (rarely more than 4-5 routes per session). Before competitions he trains a bit more specifically on our Flathold volumes - we try to simulate comp style problems on our tiny home "comp" wall in the garden.

Theo is currently trying to climb as many routes in the 8th grade as possible, looking to do them quickly and to vary the styles - he tries to do an 8th on each outdoor climbing day (within the limits of what is available at our local crags and nearby as we don't like travelling too far). The idea is to improve his risk-taking (not literally - his personality is quite risk-averse), quick decision making and flow, and to have more fun (not always easy when you are working on a longer term project). He also tries to do more onsights but the onsighting opportunities in our local area are a bit limited (the routes are often quite "sequency" and run-out).“