German, Daniel Jung has made the third ascent of Markus Bock's The Elder Statesman, ~9a, in Frankenjura, Germany.

You might remember Manu Brunn made the second ascent of this route earlier this month. Manu and Daniel had been working on the route together.

On his blog, Daniel writes that:

It's not a long route, but during the first 25 moves you need a lot of concentration. The wall isn't that steep and the holds are small and sharp. So it's a lot of struggling with the skin and conditions. Handling this and being precise and concentrated is the main difficulty of the route I think.

Manu and Daniel both thing the route is maybe more 9a than 9a/+, which was the grade Markus Bock suggested. Not a huge correction I'd say.

Daniel Jung is sponsored by: Black Diamond, Five Ten and Chimpanzodrome