Excalibur 9b+ FA by Stefano Ghisolfi

Stefano Ghisolfi has done the FA of Excalibur (9b+) in Arco. It was bolted by Christian Dorigatti and Morris Fontanari who invited Stefano to try it two years ago. Over the last year, Stefano has been trying it with Jacob Schubert, Will Bosi and Adam Ondra. (c) Diego Borello

Can you tell us more about the ascent? Did you do any specific training and did you benefit from trying it with others?
It is a short route but there are 18 moves and the rest in the middle is very important, a huge amount of strength is needed but it is not enough, power endurance is crucial for the last crux. I think it took me from 20 to 30 sessions. I didn't do any specific training but I focus my training more on power and power endurance in the past months. Trying the route with other climbers speeded up the process of finding the perfect beta and helped with motivation in the long term.

With more time, do you think you can go beyond the difficulty that something like Excalibur presents?
Yes, sure! Actually, there is a possible low start of Excalibur 😅😉 I don't know if it is possible but seems hard. We start from a rock, it is possible to start further down. There are 3 or 4 moves under probably but we never tried. I'll try it for sure, with some crash pads.

The 29-year-old has previously done three 9b+'. On the competition scene, the Italian has been one of the best performers over the last ten years having won six World Cups and being Top-8, in 39 such events.