Raboutou and Hong shed some light on their approach

Shawn Raboutou and Matty Hong were invited athletes for the Red Bull Duel MP Ascent. They were neck-on-neck with Jernej Kruder and Domen Skofic when Matty slipped out on a hand jam and took a bad fall. "It was unfortunate I sprained my ankle. We had worked out a strategy and we were trying to win and make it to the final. But it was a cool experience anyway."

In June 8a published Shawn's 9a rumors which in August was confirmed through a Mellow video of Alphane. No confirmation yet about The Megatron 9A ascent.

Why do you wait 6 months to publish your most difficult ascents?
Matty: Don't want to brag that much and easy to get caught up in all that stuff. Our priority is just to climb.
Shaw: This is Matty's quote. I have no comment.
Matty: The culture might be changing as climbing is growing. It is important to hold on to real values. You can say that this is Shawns quote :)
Shawn: No, I don't know...no comment :)
Matty: There is a new video coming up on Mellow within two weeks.

You right away mentioned strategy and winning when I asked about the Duel experience, yet you seem to be very laid back?
Matty: We are very competitive and want to send hard but we like to keep it more to ourselves. Staying neck-on-neck with such great competition climbers was a great experience and I probably slipped due to going too fast on the hand jam. It is a great feeling to push yourself to perform. It is about nerves, excitement, and enjoyment.

What's next?
Shawn: We are more focused on route climbing now. I think there is a great learning process to change disciplines and improve your climbing.

Any specific routes you want to do?
No comments :)

What about the Olympics?
Shawn: We were actually thinking about going for it but in the end, decided that it is not our path. We would be caught up for two years in that process and that is just too long.