Seb Bouin interview

Sebastien Bouin had a record breaking 2022, doing the FA of DNA (9c), Suprême Jumbo Love 9b+, Nordic Marathon 9b/+ and he also repeated Change 9b+. (c) Clarisse Bompard

What were your most emotional climbing moments in 2022?
For sure DNA was something really important to me. Clipping the anchor was something unbelievable. Not only for the performance. But I was able to go ahead. I was stuck for such a long time in DNA. Then, I would say the Norway trip was amazing. Doing Nordic Marathon, and Change (9b+) on the last day was something special too. And then, the US trip was the icing on the cake. Doing Suprême Jumbo Love in the last few days was unreal. It's definitely not happening often in life.

What about onsighting? What was your hardest onsight in 2022?
Haha 😆, not that much, my best onsights were some warm-up routes actually, some 8b's. I didn't try any hard onsight during 2022.

How do you train in between all your trips?
When I come back home between trips, I mix crag during the day and train in the gym during the evening (two sessions). It's around a month or two. But this year it was really short period of training between the trips.

Your FAs are by many considered very hard grades. What is your take on grade inflation?
It's hard to make everything coherent. I would say, it should be coherent first in a crag. Then in a region, then in a country. I try to keep coherence in the hard routes I am doing, taking care of different parameters: Time, Climbing style, Comparison with other routes, Feeling, Conditions and Shape

What are your 2023 plans and ambitions? Have you found any new crags to explore?
I am actually in Portugal trying to find the hardest route possible. Then will go a bit in Spain, Céüse, Norway and Italy. Big travels will come in 2024.