Adam Ondra and Rustam Gelmanov have both climbed 9a's lately. For Adam, this is pretty much business as usual, whereas it is more rare for Rustam who is best known as a World Cup boulderer.

What's rather unusual about Adam's ascent is that it was bolted ground up. I don't know if this has ever been done on a 9a, but I doubt it, and it looks epic.
The name of the new route is To tu ještě nebylo and it's located in the Elbe valley in the Czech Republic.

Lately, the young Czech has been spending time working an infamous project at Oliana with Chris Sharma. Cedric Lachat, who is quite a strong climber himself had a play on it and said that, in comparison, Shaxi, 9a+, felt like a warm up. This would mean it's not easy. Or as Adam put it ...the preliminary name speaks for itself - La dura dura...

Video below.

If Adam's route was unusual, I guess Rustam's couldn't be more classic. Wolfgang Güllich's Action direct at Waldkopff in Frankenjura was first climbed more than 20 years ago for first ever of the grade .

This was the Russian's 2nd 9a after Kinematix at Gorges du Loup which he did in 2008.

Adam Ondra is sponsored by: Black Diamond, Montura, La Sportiva, Beal and Hudy Sports