These are strange times indeed. Daniel Woods climbs a 60m 9a+ at Flatanger, and Seb Bouin, who you'd expect to do exactly that*, repeats an ~8C boulder.
*In fact, Seb was very, very close to repeat the very same Thor's hammer, that Daniel now has done.
Ok, back to the boulder problem with the long name. l'intégrale du toît d'Orsay, is made up of two problems which were both put up by Jacky Godoffe some 15 years ago: L'acte 1, ~7C+/8A and L'acte 2, ~8B. Some years later, in 2008, Remy Bergasse managed to link the two acts and figured it was somewhere around 8C.
Although the ~8B problem has seen several repeats lately (Guillaume Glairon-Mondet, Alban Levier, Rémi Samyn, Mickaël Mawem), no one has been able to repeat the whole line until now.
Seb thought the two parts were of about the same difficulty for him and that the main problem was a finger lock that required him to tape his fingers as it was otherwise too painful and would result in major loss of skinn. The tape made it very difficult to hold though and in the and he figured "Adam Ondra wouldn't think twice about the pain and just go for it", tore the tape off and sent the problem. Yes, he did lose a lot of skinn, but it was worth it.
Regarding the difficulty, he says he hasn't got a lot of experience when it comes to bouldering, but that it is as hard as an 8c+ route or so, and probably not 8C. Especially so as he wasn't even close to doing the 8B's he tried in Fontainebleau.
On the other hand, it should be said that this is a rather long problem, and thus it should suit Seb well.
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