In reply to fool:
Of course it's a noun, but I still maintain that its proper and idiomatic use is confined to certain contexts of which this is not one.
As to your other point, I see we agree: my original point was precisely that we wouldn't have been discussing such trivial matters had the editors translated the article into something approximating to conventional written English.
Anyway, I did try to discuss female climbing achievements, but no-one answered me. Is it in fact true that Katy Whittaker has made the youngest ever ascent of an E7, and am I right that Marietta Uhden has also climbed 8c+? The answer seems to be that no-one knows or cares.
(I thought there was some fairly well known picture of MU swinging up rightwards towards the camera through a roof into a groove, on some route which I thought was said to be 8c+. Anyone else remember that?)
jcm