These Bleauseards deserve much more credit

Bouldering was more or less invented in Fontainebleau and it is still the most often visited and biggest arena in the world. The first topo was produced in 1945 but already in the 19th century, the Bleauserads were challenged by the blocs. The Bouldering difficulty gradings can also be said to have been invented in the Forest and in fact, the american V scale is above 7A a copy when in comes to grade steps. Grades in Font have been said to be sandbagged but in reality this is just another way of saying that another grade scale has been invented outside Bleau. The best way to describe this is to compare the maximum grades. In 2005, the highest grade in Font was 8B, which can be compared to the fact that in 1996 and 2000, the world's first 8B+ and 8C had been established and since then repeated many times. Meanwhile, some 100 guys had done an 8B+ outside Font until 2005 and gained fame in magazines and on websites as well as sponsor contracts, but nobody claimed to have done 8B+ in the Forest. In reality, there is probably at least a handful Bleauseards that have done 8A to 8B Boulders in Font, equally difficult as some 8B+ to 8C+ that were reported at the time around the globe in areas like Ticino, Rocklands, Hueco Tanks, etc. Here are some Bleauseards who probably climbed 8A - 8B's in Font prior to 2005 - these problems would have been reported as 8B+ outside Font - Julien Nadiras, Antoine Vandeputte, Olivier Lebreton, Sebastien Frigault, Christophe Laumone, Jacky Godoffe, Manu Marquès and Christian Roumegoux. The bleau.info scorecards of Marques Vimeo and especially Roumegoux (52), in the picture by Pierre Delas, are very impressive and yet they are unknown outside Font. Some 15 years ago Christian did an 8c+ and onsighted two 8b's on rock and did several 8B's in Font. If Font used the same grades as Ticino etc, he could be a world famous boulderer having done probably some 8B+'s.