26 May 2023
Thรฉo Blass, 13, sending Panonoramix (8b+)
Thรฉo Blass did his first 8c at age 10 and last September he sent Trip tik tonik (9a) at age 12. His father Vladimir Arnaoudov, has previously explained his son's climbing background and we asked him what they have been up to this spring.
"He started the year tired and weakened after catching the flu a couple of times. He had to start training gently and building up the volume and intensity very slowly. In April he was in decent shape to start trying harder stuff. He usually likes working on hard projects but this year he decided to focus on routes that he could send quickly, mostly in our local area. He sent Elzevir (8b+), a classic fingery testpiece in Claret, Biotpo (8b+) a magnificent 8m roof with great compression moves in Claret (famously onsighted by Chris Sharma and flashed by Adam Ondra), Panonoramix (8b+/8c) short and bouldery route in St Leger, La theorie des cordes (8c) a classic stamina route in St Leger and Crazy world (8c) a sustained 30 m route with a few hard cruxes near Aniane.
He's got his eyes set on a few harder routes in the 9th degree, but he is a bit too short for them now. He can do practically all the moves of his harder projects, but using different sequences and sometimes higher feet, which makes them even harder, so he decided to be patient and while he is waiting to grow he will continue to focus on easier routes where he has more fun."
"He started the year tired and weakened after catching the flu a couple of times. He had to start training gently and building up the volume and intensity very slowly. In April he was in decent shape to start trying harder stuff. He usually likes working on hard projects but this year he decided to focus on routes that he could send quickly, mostly in our local area. He sent Elzevir (8b+), a classic fingery testpiece in Claret, Biotpo (8b+) a magnificent 8m roof with great compression moves in Claret (famously onsighted by Chris Sharma and flashed by Adam Ondra), Panonoramix (8b+/8c) short and bouldery route in St Leger, La theorie des cordes (8c) a classic stamina route in St Leger and Crazy world (8c) a sustained 30 m route with a few hard cruxes near Aniane.
He's got his eyes set on a few harder routes in the 9th degree, but he is a bit too short for them now. He can do practically all the moves of his harder projects, but using different sequences and sometimes higher feet, which makes them even harder, so he decided to be patient and while he is waiting to grow he will continue to focus on easier routes where he has more fun."
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