Stefano Ghisolfi has repeated Chris Sharma's Neanderthal (9b) in Santa Linya and in doing so has completed three of the four 9b routes he has set his sights on for this season.

Within the last month Stefano has already completed The Full Journey (9b) in Margalef and Sleeping Lion (9b) in Siurana. The final route on the ticklist is Fight or Flight (9b) in Oliana, which he has never been on (unlike Neanderthal, which he'd tried previously). As a result of this, the outcome is a little more unknown, but given the form he's clearly on he's in with as good a chance as any!

We asked him about the reasons for his recent success shortly after he repeated Sleeping Lion, and he had this to say:

'I trained a bit more specifically for this trip during winter, I climbed a lot outside in Arco and trained on routes and on the wooden board in Innsbruck in order to be prepared for this trip. Having multiple projects at the same time helped me with motivation and rest, they are different styles route and when you try one you can "rest" for the other one'.

'The downside of this strategy is that you need to have time, but I planned the trip to be a long one and patiently waited to send, without never focusing too much on just one route'.

Neanderthal was first climbed by Chris Sharma in 2009. It wasn't repeated until 2018 when Jakob Schubert made the second ascent. Just a few months later, Adam Ondra followed suit, making the third ascent.