According to the website 8a.nu, the thirteen year old French climber, Geoffrey De Flaugergues has just completed his second F8c+. The youngster from Chambery has climbed the route Declac at La Balme.

Geoffrey, who has been climbing since 2000 is only 150 cm tall and weighs around 40kg! He climbed his first F8c+, La Novena Puerta at Santa Linya, in February this year and in August he on-sighted Esprit Rebelle F8b at Rodellar in Spain.

On a similar subject, 15 year old Adam Ondra has recently won the Youth World Cup in Sydney, topping out on every route. It will be interesting to see what happens when he is old enough to enter the senior events.

So with this emerging band of young super-mutants crushing all and sundry at such an early age, are standards set to rise dramatically or will they just burn out? At the moment it's hard to say, but impressive recent ascents from the likes of Tribout and Erbesfield and the world class performances from our very own Steve McClure (himself well into his thirties) show that we still can't say that climbing is a young person's game!