UKC

French Olympic-qualified athlete Julia Chanourdie has reported in an Instagram story that she has redpointed Eagle 4 9b at Saint Léger. Julia is only the third woman to climb the grade, after Angela Eiter's ascent of La Planta de Shiva in 2017 and Laura Rogora's redpoint of Ali Hulk Sit Start Extension Total in 2020. Eagle 4 was first climbed by Adam Ondra in 2018, and Julia's ascent is only the third after Hugo Parmentier's repeat this April. 

Brilliant achievement 

When did she climb this. Did she say the date?

E

Not sure but she was posting about a different route at St Leger two days ago. Her Instagram says she's allowed to climb indoors and out as a high level athlete during lockdown. (I'm assuming the lockdown is what prompted your question.)

Yes it f*cking sucks. I live 12 minutes drive from St. Leger and I can't climb there. I can't climb anywhere and these people are rubbing our noses in it.

I can go out on my mountain bike but if I go further than 1km from the house I'm liable to a 135€ fine.

Pissed off - me - not at all.

E

To be fair, she has just done the joint hardest climb by a woman ever and all she did was put up an Instagram story picture of herself reporting the news... not even a picture of her on the route or a picture of the crag. So I don't think it's fair to say she is rubbing anyone's nose in it.

Couldn’t agree more, Craig. There are a bunch of other categories of climbers that can climb now also. Guides, instructors, children (presumably with instructors/ guides), handicapped, crag maintenance etc etc... Hunters can do what the f*ck they want... And we sit and watch them - or risk 135€..........

Really. She only had to wait 3 weeks like the rest of us. I don't care if it's 9b or 6b.

E

See my reply to Craig. Not her, but all the others out climbing while we sit at home.

Ah but you won't be competing for the glory of the start-up nation in Tokyo will you? Besides, she didn't say but maybe she lives within 1km of the crag and actually climbed this solo and in under an hour, approach walk and warm-up included?

We'll have to agree to disagree on that one!

What would you have done in her shoes? 🙂

Separate note , is there an update guide book available for st leger ? Thanks Ed 

I am in her shoes. I have a 7b project in the Toulourenc. I was waiting until December. I was trying to do the right thing.

Thanks to Julia I will now be going climbing tomorrow. And having discussed this with a few others over the last 24h a few more will be joining us.

E

You've actually no idea. Everytime I now log on to the forums I have that wonderful smiling face looking at me over there on the right hand side of my screen

E

Are you currently allowed to climb outdoors?

E

Irrelevant. Climbing is just as important to me and many others as it is to those operating at the top level.

The point about that was that it was newsworthy.

It seems like most people disagree with the policy rather than the individual.

It’s probably not really though, is it?

I could pretend the same were true for me, or say things like, running is as important to me as it is to Eliud Kipchoge, or football is as important to my daughter as it it is to Tammy Abraham, but those things wouldn’t actually be true (certainly not the first two).  If they were I’d be far better at both of them.

I can see why Enty’s annoyed.  But most elite sport is continuing (whether it should be or not is probably up for debate) and on any analysis Julie is an elite athlete.

About what? 

If I could go climbing because of a loophole, but other climbers in my country couldn't, I would definitely be out climbing. 

For the record, I'm in the UK so can go climbing fortunately. 

Is she allowed to climb because she's a comp climber?

The only difference I can see is that climbing is her job. However I am assuming a couple of things here:

1. She gets her income from grants and sponsorship due to her climbing and Olympic qualification status.

2. You only climb as a leisure activity.

But even if those assumptions are both true, I think you could still argue with some justification that her primary job role at the moment is to achieve at the Olympics, and that this could be done for a while without climbing outside and "rubbing your nose in it".

This pandemic sucks - stay well.

We're not talking about a controlled environment at Old Trafford, this is a crag 15 minutes from my house. There's another crag 5 minutes away with 9As getting climbed.

Think about it. There's a 6b 50m away from Super Crackinette, I'm not allowed to climb the 6B but if you can climb 9a you can go and climb the latter.

Anyway, I'm not the only one thinking like this either. She's actually mobilised people so fingers crossed. It's the Cummings effect.

E

If her primary concern is keeping strong for the Olympics she could've kept quiet for 3 weeks.

And on your other point, cycling is my job, I'll have clients coming in Spring and I won't be fit enough to ride with them because I'm not FFC Category 1 and therefore not allowed to train.

E

I know.  It’s not cycling on closed roads either.  It’s a worse analogy the more I think about it.  It was just the comment “climbing is as important to me as to those operating at an elite level” that I wanted to respond to (I know it wasn’t your comment).  For the vast majority, even very talented and keen climbers, it’s not even remotely true.  I’m not sure I think that this means that she should have the crag to herself though.

Good luck - hope you don’t get caught and the gendarmes aren’t reading this website.

I think your point about elite sport is fair enough (for all sports). But we're not talking competition here, we're basically talking about a climber doing her project for fun, the same as me working, say, an E5. One is no more worthy than the other.

Hi Enty, not sure of your exact situation, but if you're qualified to guide cycling in France, you're allowed to cycle outside of the 1hr, 1k restriction to maintain your fitness. I'm a French mountain bike guide and the MCF have been great at keeping us all informed, whilst also pointing out that this is a privilege and we should respect that the majority of others are not in our situation. Here's the derogation if you need it:  https://mcusercontent.com/6f6af487c45fcf02f7297acfb/files/d398dcc0-54b1-4d3...

Also, amazing effort on the 9b which is the whole point of the thread.

Depends how you define important. Money? Mental health?

Yeah, awesome.

*Julia, obviously, not Julie.

I tend to agree with you. If it was really about competition then she should be on plastic.

I get it if it's about keeping form for the Olympics but it's not. If it was she could've been down St Leger every day last week and no one would know. 

It's more about getting big numbers on The Gram. 

E

The point is that she DIDN'T have to wait like "the rest of us". She hasn't done anything that is forbidden. And sounds like she smashed that 9b like the pro she is. Good effort Julia! 

She looks very fit, obviously need to keep in shape...no complaints from me.

At least you do have a crag 15 minutes away from your house.  I'm not feeling that sorry for you.

I'm as frustrated as you are - I have routes within a few minutes walk from here that I've bolted and still not climbed.

But I think you're interpreting the restrictions in an unhelpful way. The point is to severely reduce to opportunity for covid transmission, while maintaining as much employment and professional opportunity as possible in the meantime. Yes, it sounds wrong that only one of two seemingly equivalent people can visit a crag, and it sounds elitist. But in reality it's little different to only one of two people being allowed to go for a drive - i.e. the one that's on the way to work.

The result of treating professionals and non-professionals equally in permitting crag access would be to substantially increase the opportunity for virus transmission while out climbing, so in that respect the restriction has logic behind it. 

You could argue about to what extent outdoor climbing is genuinely a conduit for covid transmission, but that would be a separate issue that may have a lot more merit. As it stands, a minuscule number of climbers are still able to get out, and I think objecting to them doing so, or being allowed to do so, has the smell of sour grapes.

For me, the positive side of this is that it is highlighting the stupidity of this lockdown.

I did an hour on the mountain bike this morning. I came across 2 grande chasse in operation.

There were  also cars parked at the Mollans crag.

My 14 year old daughter will be in contact with 100s of people tomorrow at school. 

I'll be in contact with god knows how many at the supermarket and shops. 

I have arranged to go climbing in Tuesday.

Members of my cycling club are arranging to ride this week. 

So thanks Julia!

E

Not sure what to make of this. One of the great things about climbing is that you can go to a crag or the wall and climb alongside as an equal and have just as much right to be there as the very best climbers. Giving special treatment to elite/professional climbers (or "athletes" - Aaargh! - as they seem to get called) does seem to undermine this tradition of egalitarianism. It creates an "us and them" situation which I do find rather sad.

While the rule that you are not allowed to climb definitely asks to be adjusted, don't blame it on her!

Become an activist and try to change the rule or let it go.

Don't make yourself unhappy on purpose.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/1200/made

See section 3 in English legislation “Elite sportsperson” and the relevant exceptions.

So in principle, Shauna etc can go to the wall (if they’ll open for them) but you can’t. Quel dommage!

In general terms the main difference between the UK’s and France’s position is that France is more explicitly restrictive in the activities (or rather in its enforcement - 1km/1 hour max) given what is actually very similar legislation.

I’m currently within 1km of hundreds of routes in France, and could easily do a couple of routes within an hour, but I reckon there’s a very good chance the gendarmes would be there within that hour too.

I am, absolutely.

E

Would the comments be different if the news was that Megos had repeated Silence or that Ondra had repeated Bibliography I wonder?

Julia Chanourdie has stepped up and taken the number of female climbers operating at the very top level to three. This news is so impressive and to achieve that in 2020 is just staggering. One hell of a story this. Well done Julia, just awesome news. No rules broken, no one put at risk just some good news in a year that until yesterday had been a pretty horrible year. 

Makes Eva Lopez's most recent instagram post outdated too  https://www.instagram.com/p/CHNkCZOD_2p/?igshid=gpiguhudyzrh

That kind of f*ck you culture is largely what is responsible for this mess. 

The rules are stupid frankly I don't agree two people outdoors is any issue. But organising club meets etc is frankly daft. 

I don't think rallying against it and breaking rules can really be condoned though. Peoples moderate infringement encourages others to follow suit. Been more altruistic and looking out for each other will see us through. 

Yes, it's just that climbers would rather be doing it themselves than reading about others with strange and frankly unfair exemptions, so you can't blame some for being more jealous/frustrated than appreciative. I do agree with Thomas about the wisdom of organising club meets though.  

It's an incredible effort by Julia Chanourdie. I think it goes to show that the only reason that there aren't more women at the very top level is that female participation is still lower than male participation. This difference has been narrowing since I started climbing and uthope that it will  level up even more.

I have to also say that, while I don't support Enty's decision to break lockdown restrictions, I'm surprised that the view here (unless I'm reading it wrong) seems to be that professionals have more right to be at the crags than non-professionals. 

About 6a probably. 6a+ max. Assuming she's got big enough feet.

Well done to her by the way.

Martin

No, it's not. Someone in a position of power, making the rules, and then breaking them without any repercussions, would be the Cummings effect.

Someone doing something that they are legally allowed to do, who didn't make the rules, is not.

What an awesome achievement though!

I would second above sentiments. Pro climber acting legally within French law, no harm done. Amazing 9b ascent, well done Julia!!!

I'm not sure that is the view? More that the the rules allow her to go climbing outside so she may as well do so - I'm sure we all would if we were in her situation. The fairness of the rules is another question really and I agree that it does seem somewhat unfair. I've got less of a problem over in the UK where pros are still allowed to go to indoor walls and I'm not - because it's their job and they need to train to keep it, whereas my income isn't under any threat by staying away from the indoor wall.

Also, obviously a phenomenal achievement by Julia - great effort.

I suspect if it was Britain during a spell of amazing weather, opinions would be somewhat different!

We are going through a spell of amazing weather. I just haven't managed to work out what it's amazing for 😁

This

I dont remember seeing an outcry when Seb Bouin reported a repeat of Hugh (under lockdown) the other day...

I think the bigger issue is the ridiculousness of the French laws. You can criticise the UK government response but at least they have acted on lessons learned and are now actively encouraging people to get into the outdoors as the CV risk is clearly v.low and the benefits are obvious, also presumably with the thinking that it will make people less miserable about where the restrictions have to continue more strictly. If your overlaid the CV plots from France/UK right now without labels you would struggle to tell which is which, so its not like the French house arrest model is really buying anything.

I don't think so. Do you? Why?

The crags are still pretty busy in the UK, most people seem to be carrying on as normal.

Because unlike in France, the legislation allows non-professionals to use them. 

He posted about Hugh on the second day of lockdown.

The wording at the end of his post about checking the rules before deciding whether he could get back on Akira and de l'autre Côté du Ciel makes it sound as if he probably climbed Hugh pre-lockdown but didn't get around to reporting it until after lockdown started.

Bouin climbed Hugh on the 30th of October, the last day before we were locked down. He still has projects there and wants to go back before the end of the year.

He's stated that he's going to use the loophole to carry on his Vintage rock tour.

E

The thread is already a km long and no-one (I think... I got bored) has pointed out that the route is actually called Eagle-4. It is a pun that mocks the first ascensionist in a gentle way. The pun works without the hyphen but it is funnier with the hyphen in.

It’s not a loop hole.

I don't get it

Génial ! 

To work it out:

Eagle and 4 should be pronounced with a strong French accent
the hyphen should be read as 'trait'
il ≈ y

Bon courage !

I heard about this. So who named the route? The guy that bolted it? And he knew that it'll be Ondra doing it? That's some 4D level chess.

The bolter usually name the route, and he suggested it as a project to Ondra.

Genius IMHO.

Does anybody actually get this though, even with the explanation? I certainly don't.

Me neither.

"Eagle" = y (il) gueule = he shouts/screams

"-" = tiret ~ très* = very

"four" = fort = loud(ly)

=> Y gueule très fort (he screams really loudly) (or something like that)

(To be fair someone had to explain to me that the name was some kind of pun at the time of the FA... even though I'm French.)

*tiret really is two syllables, tee-ray, but why would you let that get in the way of a good joke?

Nope, been here 17 years and speak French. It's a bit tenuous, like Doug says.

Anyway, 3 campervans and 2 cars at the top car park today.

E

The below Epic TV climbing daily episode explains it at about 1.10.

youtube.com/watch?v=ukG9O1utg6o&

Thanks for that. Every time this route gets mentioned, people always talk about the great pun in the name. But you are the first person who has actually explained it fully so that non-French speakers can understand.

As someone who can only speak very basic French, I guessed it was something about shouting a lot but don't know enough to understand it properly.

Well done Julie Charnourdie! Women are crushing Hard as Nailz routes! 

Isn't she sponsored by La Sportiva and Petzl aswell as Digital Climbing?! 

MS