Ghisolfi Bibliographie 9b+ interview

Stefano Ghisolfi, who just secured the overall Lead World Cup, comments on his recent ascent of Bibliographie, which he gave a personal 9b+ grade. Interestingly is that he projected it meanwhile placing 2 - 11 - 2 - 1 in the World Cup. After having done the it, he drove directly back to Arco where he won the Duel Speed run!

Please describe your project strategy during the 25 days? How you worked the crux and started to make links in combination how much you rested? How did you do all this in combination with the World Cup?
I started trying the route at the beginning of June. Then I stopped in July because of the world cup and started again at end of July/August for the whole month. Céüse is just 7 hours driving from Arco so I knew I could make different trips during the summer to try it, and this helps a lot to alternate days on the project, rest and training.

On the first days I started working on the moves, focusing on both cruxes, without focusing too much on the very first part and on the very last part. Then when I could climb the cruxes, I started trying to low-point the route, which means starting from a certain point on the route and trying to go to the top. First I could do it starting from the beginning of the second crux, then just a few holds before. On my second trip, I could do it starting from the second rest (after the first crux), and on my third trip I was able to climb it from the beginning of crux 1 to the top, and this was the biggest step. I tried few times trying it from the first rest to the top but never actually did it from there because when I felt it was possible I started trying it from the ground. The world cup was in July so I simply focused on competition and training for that month and started trying again after my victory in Briancon, which is quite close to Céüse.

How did you mentally prepare yourself before climbing and during the send. What goes through your mind?
During the day of the send I was already thinking I had to come back, it rained a bit and seemed a bad day. But fortunately, it was the last day so I had to try it and turned out to be the best day. I had no expectations and just tried hard, probably if that wasn't the last day I wouldn't even had to go up to the crag considering the weather. 10 days before the end of the trip it was very hot to climb there, so I decided to drive to Briancon to train on the lead world cup wall, in order to rest the skin, the legs but while keep training for both the route and the last stage of the world cup, and this helped me a lot, physically and mentally.

Please describe the cruxes and how hard they are?
The first crux is 4 moves 8A+: a left far gaston, match, a painful 2 finger pocket where I could fit 3, and a long move to a sharp crimp. The hardest for me was to match the gaston, which I did with inverted hands compared to Alex. The second crux is a bit easier, 7C, but is way higher on the route, so I was more pumped there. I did a very different beta from Alex, every hold he took with the left hand I used with the right hand, and the last two holds are the same with the same hands. I think my beta is a bit easier, I tried Alex's one but you need to be a bit taller to feel comfortable on it. The hardest two moves are to go to a slopey pinch (which other climbers don't take as a pich, I'm the only one), and to match close to a left undercling, where I risked to fall during the send attempt.