19 August 2022

Grade reflections from Bouin changing history?

Sebastien Bouin has the last month done four routes 9a+ or harder in Flatanger, including the 130m long Nordic Marathon and Adam Ondra's Change (9b+) from 2012. Three years ago he repeated Ondra's Move (9b) from 2013. (c) Marco Müller

Seb, who is honest and outspoken about grades, has published more reflections on Insta, giving credits to Adam who did not use knee pads doing the FAs.

"I did the First Ascent (of Nordic Marathon) during this recent trip (before sending Change). I proposed the grade 9b/+. This route is 100% my climbing style. Still, it was hard to give a grade for such a long route. So, to compare these three routes. I will take into consideration, the time, climbing style, and feelings on the process and send."

Interestingly, Seb thinks that Move is the hardest and suggests a personal upgrade to 9b+ at the same time he thinks Change was 9b/+ for him due to the use of knee pads. In other words, it might be that in the history books, La Dura dura (9b+), from 2013, will be considered the first 9b+ in the world as Adam did the FA of it six months before putting up Move.
2 comments
Sort by:
Date
Reply
Most commented
Jernej Kruder sends Martin Krpan (9a) sans knee pads

Jernej Kruder, who won the Boulder World Cup in 2018, has done Martin Krpan (9a) in Mišja Peč. “I would like to expose something here: I spent many tries on t…

Welcome to Vertical-Life Web

Six years after partnering with 8a.nu, we’re excited to announce the unification of the 8a.nu website and the Vertical-Life app into a single platform: Vertical…

Will Bosi repeats Return of the Sleepwalker (9A)

William Bosi has made the second ascent of Daniel Woods’ Return of the Sleepwalker (9A) in Black Velvet Canyon, after projecting it for 12 sessions. This was th…

Related
Nordic Marathon 130m 9b/+ FA by Seb Bouin

Sebastien Bouin has done the FA of the 130m Nordic Marathon 9b/+ in Flatanger. It starts with Nordic Plumber (8c) and continues into Thor's Hammer 2 (9a+) follo…

Change P2 9a by Seb Bouin

Sebastein Bouin reports on Insta that he has done Change P2 9a in Flatanger. He explains that Adam Ondra's Change (9b+) can be divided into two pitches, 9a+ and…

Change P1 9a+ by Seb Bouin

Sebastien BOUIN, who in the last week has done one 9a+ and one 9a+ (b) in Flatanger, has sent Change P1 (9a+). Adam Ondra did the FA ten years ago and it is the…