UKC

Toni about his new 8C+

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Hearing about Toni's success, I instantly sent an email his way:

"Hi Toni, I noticed you've succeeded on the Mega beast link-up! Magnificent! Congratulations!Can you describe the journey and the success in a few sentences? How are you able to keep yourself motivated when you work a climb for soooo long?"

The answer arrived just a couple of hours later. This is what he had to say:

"It was a lucky day, when I did it, because I needed 6 tries on that day and I don't wanna tell you where I fell before succeding. The whole thing started as a training game. There are two hard variations in Kochel that I climbed in the last years, the "Assassin" and "Bokassa's Fridge". Both have a weak point avoiding the total straight line. So the training game was to try the straight link-up. I used it as training game, because I had the long-term target to climb a hard project this summer (maybe for the last time - think of my age) in my mind, but I used it to get fit for some boulder-projects, too. Because of my job I can't travel so much anymore and the weather didn't allow a lot of choices bouldering-wise. That's the reason why there's only Kochel (45 min away) left, as one of the only spots, that is try - no matter how ugly the weather is.
I sort of trained in the straight-project after I couldn't do any moves on other boulder-projects, just to get strong again. That's what I did last autumn. It was the first time since years without a winter break for me and although I broke two crucial holds (caused by some inflative weight-gain around christmas) I really liked trying this thing. I snapped a little edge and a sidepull, leaving a "real" new project. After an injury in Ticino (I fell really bad on my a... and injured the sacral-bone) I got into that health-healing trip, avoiding alcohol and bad food. I tried bouldering and of course I tried THE project - managing to do it in 3 parts. But the injury didn't get better in the first 4 or 5 weeks, because I never really stopped bouldering and in the end of January I got really painfull Ischias-problems as well. After a two weeks break I started again. Almost 10 kilos lighter and without the pain in my back my climbing improved really fast and I did the thing with one rest mid of February. I climbed a few other projects at home and in albarracin and when I came back it seemed the right time to attack it seriously.
It is hard to compare "Bokassa's Fridge-Assassin, Monkey and man" to other climbs, because for me it started as a game and ended (after some holds changed) as the new bouldering-highlight in front of my home. I wouldn't consider it as a great line if it would be anywhere else, but at home it is something that you can try every day. It has nice, powerfull and of course long moves and the rock is always dry. What else can you expect, if you don't have the time to drive to new places and don't want to go to the gym. It just happens, that you climb things like this one... . The name is similar to the climb a combination of the two "old" boulders."

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