9 March 2021
El Potro 9a by Marco Zanone
Marco Zanone has done Adam Ondra's El Potro 9a in Margalef in less than ten tries. The Italian has previously done 14 8c+'s and two 9a's. We asked Marco if he could share his story and how Covid-19 affected the trip.
"At the beginning of February, I planned a ten days trip to Spain with a couple of friends and we knew we had to take all the precautions due to covid restriction. Two days before to leave we took the covid test and once we were sure to be all negative, on the 27th of February we left for Spain. The plan was to climb at the Laboratori sector with the goal to climb First Ley (9a), a route I started trying at the end of December 2019. I felt ready to climb it but for the first time, the conditions were bad. I was trying my best but I was not able to succeed. One day the conditions felt even worse for me, so I decided to try something else. I didn't go too far and I chose to try "El Potro".
Since the first try, I felt good on the moves because the style suited me very well. Big moves and big pinches on a power resistant route. I tried for two other days, on and off with "First Ley", which was still my main project, and I eventually sent it on the last day of the trip. It felt like a soft 9a to me, but I also know that when I climbed Bumaye (8c+) in 2017, I'm quite sure I would not have been able to do the crux boulder of El Potro, so maybe it makes sense to call it 9a. Hopefully, it will get more attention in the near future, the route is rad!"
"At the beginning of February, I planned a ten days trip to Spain with a couple of friends and we knew we had to take all the precautions due to covid restriction. Two days before to leave we took the covid test and once we were sure to be all negative, on the 27th of February we left for Spain. The plan was to climb at the Laboratori sector with the goal to climb First Ley (9a), a route I started trying at the end of December 2019. I felt ready to climb it but for the first time, the conditions were bad. I was trying my best but I was not able to succeed. One day the conditions felt even worse for me, so I decided to try something else. I didn't go too far and I chose to try "El Potro".
Since the first try, I felt good on the moves because the style suited me very well. Big moves and big pinches on a power resistant route. I tried for two other days, on and off with "First Ley", which was still my main project, and I eventually sent it on the last day of the trip. It felt like a soft 9a to me, but I also know that when I climbed Bumaye (8c+) in 2017, I'm quite sure I would not have been able to do the crux boulder of El Potro, so maybe it makes sense to call it 9a. Hopefully, it will get more attention in the near future, the route is rad!"
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