NEWS

Sara Copar, Youth World Champion in 2021, reports on Insta that she has done Histerija (8c+) in Osp - Banje in Babna. It is 30+ meters long partly on big tufas, followed by a boulder crux and then the pumpy finish is on crimpers.

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Comments from his father Vladimir from last year when Thรฉo had done his first 8c.

"Theo started climbing more regularly when he was 8 (he was climbing before, but quite irregularly). His progression was quite interesting: it took him a few months of projecting to send his first 6b+ (on top rope) and then he progressed from 6b+ to 8b in less than a year and a half. His training is a bit chaotic and highly dependent on motivation, time of the year and availability of other more fun activities (such as mountain biking, skiing or building a shack in the garden). At the beginning of the lockdown he trained a lot at our small home bouldering wall but then he lost motivation and did not train for a month.

From the dad's perspective, there are two key takeaways from the experience of belaying, watching, encouraging, counselling, supporting and occasionally arguing with Theo about beta: (1) adult grades are a bit of a nonsense when it comes to kids - two of the hardest moves on the route for Theo are among the easiest for adults - so not worth getting too excited about grades (especially when you are under 1m40); (2) even if fear, frustration and failure are part of the game, climbing kids of the world, enjoy every moment of climbing, projecting, trying hard, sending and try to have fun, and confidence - the future belongs to you."

Chilam Balam 9a+/b by Jonathan Flor
Jonathan Flor reports on Insta that he has done Chilam Balam 9a+/b in Villanueva del Rosario.(c) Carlos Padilla

The 80 meters super steep route was put up by Barnabรฉ Fernandez in 2003 as a 9b+. This created controversies as even 9b had not been confirmed before and Alex Huber did officially question the grade. Furthermore, as Fernandez could not name his belayer or was not interested to talk about his ascent with the Spanish media, it was not considered legitimate for many years.

Adam Ondra did the first repeat and suggested a downgrade to 9b. Later it has been repeated by five more guys with 9a+/b as the consensus grade. Jonathan Flor has previously done some 55 routes 8c+/9a or harder which puts him as #7 on that list.

Will Bosi has made the FA of the long standing project, Brandenburg Gate (9a+) at Raven Tor. โ€œThe climb is very similar to Hubble in a sense but the sequence of moves are a lot more complex and technically demanding. I was stuck for a while on the lower section but once I was able to unlock a sequence, the route came together really quickly for meโ€.

Overall, it took Will eight sessions to unlock the sequence on Brandenburg and 7 redpoint attempts to finally complete the chains. The route was widely assumed to be graded 9b due to its perceived difficulty and being an open project on such a popular sport climbing destination however Bosi settled on 9a+.

โ€œMy view is that Brandenburg was a soft end 9a+, in comparison to Mutation which I regard as solid 9a+. The climbing was harder than other 9aโ€™s I have done in the past but not by a large degree so I feel it just about deserves 9a+. However, again I look forward to seeing the route get more ascents so the grade can settle one way or the otherโ€.

The ascent is another milestone in a breakout year for Bosi on rock where he has climbed 9b+ and claimed multiple first ascents in Spain, rapid ascents of hard boulders out in Switzerland alongside his recent exploits at Raven Tor which places him at the vanguard of the new generation of strong British talent and alongside the true elite of world sport climbing.