Like many, I've been inspired and awed by Ondra for a decade or more. Recently, I've been impressed with the way he's developed as a person. He is always making time for his fans and showing respect for the climbing areas, climbers, cities, countries, and cultures he visits. I love that he speaks a lot of languages, including Czech, English, Spanish, some German, French, and perhaps more. He shows a love of learning and a willingness to put the work in to achieve his ambitions. I wondered how he'd handle the disappointment of his Olympic qualification failure in August, given his emotional outbursts of just a few years ago. It was nice to see he didn't blame officials or route-setting or rules and just vowed to work hard to qualify at a later date. Class. In a world where character seems to matter less and less, I'm glad to see Adam becoming a good example for climbers in what he does off the rock, not just what he does on the rock.

I agree with everything else you say about Adam, but that bit above I think just describes your average well educated young (non-British) European person! :) Not particularly unusual - my better half has Finnish as her mother tongue, speaks English and French fluently, and gets by in Swedish and Spanish. She has even done beginners level Russian and although she claims she can't remember any, she has an annoying habit of reading things in Cyrillic followed by "I think that means...".

I've never been to the Czech Republic but I suspect their language teaching at schools puts ours to shame, most European school systems seem to.

Totally agree, he is a fantastic role model for climbing.

I may be misremembering but I could have sworn being in a restaurant in Kalymnos and Alex Megos, who was sitting at another table, was conversing with the waiter in what sounded at least to me like fluent Greek.