Our on-off column rounding up this week’s climbing news from around the globe. New entrants to 9b sports climbing, non-stop world cup bouldering and speed action, new speed climbing world records and more. Follow us on facebook, instagram, or twitter for more.
Piotr Schab Sends 9b “Fight or Flight”
Polish climber Piotr Schab has climbed his first 9b “Fight or Flight”. This makes him the first Polish climber to achieve the grade and one of less than 20 people to have ever climbed this hard. The route is a Chris Sharma classic from 2011 in Oliana, Spain.
New Jim Pope Film – UK Crusher has a new Film
Jim Pope is a young but very hard climber from the UK that has been blazing up the grades in the UK and branching out to Europe. Jim is 19 years old and was born in Hackney, London, but now lives in Sheffield. He was on the GB Junior team and is taking part in the current Bouldering World Cup circuit.
Famous for climbing 8b+ at 15, Jim has also sent the British super scary trad route “Appointment with Death” E9 6c. The route has a single wire for protection, and a fall would need the belayer to take a running jump off a hill for the climber to not hit the floor.
In the film Jim visits Hanshelleren Cave in Flatanger, Norway. The area was partly developed by Adam Ondra and famously where the hardest sports climb in the world – “Silence” 9c – was completed by him.
Climbing World Cup News
Following on from the new Women’s World Record time of 7.101 set by YiLing Song we have more speed and bouldering news from the IFSC World Cup series.
The Wujiang Speed results are in with Dmitrii Timofeev of Russia taking Gold in the Men’s. He acheived his own personal best as well as the fastest time of the day in the 1/2 final with 5.58 seconds. This is only .01 seconds off of Reza Alipour Shenazandifar’s world record of 5.48.
Aleksandra Rudzinska took gold in the Women’s with a clear lead in this event. She was the only woman to get any result under 7.3 seconds, with 7.285 in the qualification round and 7.28 in the 1/2 final.
In last week’s Bouldering results from the blistering heat of Chongqing, Manuel Cornu of France took Gold with a hugely impressive win over Tomoa Narasaki. Janja Garnbret again showed her complete dominance in Bouldering for Slovenia. Topping out every single problem in qualifications and the finals she takes another Gold for the very strong Slovenian team.
Alex Puccio sends 8B+ / V14 “Heritage” in Val Bavona, Switzerland
Alex Puccio is the biggest name in US bouldering and made headlines when she announced she wouldn’t climb in the Olympics. The decision was made so that she wouldn’t have to focus on styles of climbing that didn’t suit her, or that she didn’t enjoy. Being able to really focus on outdoors climbing and bouldering specifically seems to be really paying off.
This is Puccio’s fifth V14 and it would be amazing to see her step up from this to V15. “Heritage” is a V14 / 8B+ originally put up by the prolific Carlo Traversi in 2012. Due to her height and reach, Alex had to use different beta to most other ascents, noting “This boulder is way harder being under a certain height! Have to hop out of the toe hook for the first crux move to the left hand gaston and then the last move to the right hand just under the lip is WAY harder since for my height you can’t use the good left lower foot others use. Have to ball up and punch to the last hold. Was a huge crux for me!!!”.
Big Climbing Gear Sales and new Black Diamond Camalot C4
Moosejaw are offering an extra 20% off of items already on sale with the code HURRYUP for the the next 96 hours through this link. You can get the really well reviewed and light weight Black Diamond Solution harness for $42. La Sportiva Miura’s for $92. Our “most comfortable” rated beginner shoes the Tarantulace for only $52. This Mammut 5 pack of quickdraws for $61 is a steal too.
As Black Diamond has just released the new redesigned Camalot C4’s in the 4, 5, and 6 sizes (the big ones used in off-width’s), the older C4’s are now on sale. You can buy the old 4, 5, 6 size C4’s for a knock down price directly from Black Diamond here, or ALL sizes of the last C4’s at 30% off from Backcountry.
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