Mauro Calibani succeeds on Leonardo, 8b+ boulder, in Meschia.

Beginning of April 2003. A nice late spring evening, near the sandstone boulders of Meschia, the Italian heaven of extreme bouldering. Mauro Calibani walks around the boulders, with his friend Mauro Mongiovì, waiting for the right moment to make a good try on the last monstrous problem he is working on.
At eight P.M. the right moment: with a light wind the friction of the rock increases to its maximum. Mauro starts very determined. He manages the first dyno and also the second one. The sole of the climbing shoes seems to make wonder and his fingers too. Calibba contains the flag better than usual, pulls on the crimper of the last move and it’s done: Leonardo has been born, proposed grade, waiting for repetitions, 8b+.
It is all about a spectacular and very hazardous move, discovered a few months before together with French Julien Nadiras. 10 very physical moves at the limit, on flat and distant holds. A hard work of compression, but also three small crimpers, that make the game even more various and interesting. There is no particular key move. The difficulty of the sequence is homogenous: constant from when you lift a foot from the ground, to when you reach the final top.
Taking advantage of a period of good shape, the World Champion has needed four sessions of tries, each of them about one hour long. Mauro tells us his impression about the performance.

Considerations about an extreme boulder problem.
About two months ago, together with Julien Nadiras, we have found a new possibly climbable boulder problem, with very few holds, among the boulders of Meschia.
The profile and the line were doubtless interesting. After having carefully brushed it, after an hour the first section materializes, with a “standing” start of the sequence that I manage to climb straight away. In the next days I work on the “sitting” start, much more complex and articulated. It has been necessary to work carefully on the moves, because an interpretation mistake of the problem would have compromised the final result.
A few days later Leonardo is born, one of the hardest boulder problems of Italy, and not only. The origin of its name is particular, because metaphorically bound to the Gioconda, the picture of Leonardo Da Vinci, exhibited in the Louvre Museum in Paris.
I wanted to create a parallel between both things: on one side the symbol of the Italian artistic genius, with his most famous masterpiece exhibited In France, and on the other side a wonderful extreme boulder problem in Italy, discovered with the help of a French top climber. A way as good as another to point out that also in our areas, like in France, there are precious rock art masterpieces, realized by nature and interpreted by man through climbing.
I find that bouldering represents the essence of climbing and Leonardo is its icon: ten moves that request maximum power, explosive strength and motoric coordination.
Other than for other problems I solved until now, to climb this one I dedicated four days of big concentration. Every time I made two to four tries, waiting for the best conditions, usually after sunset.
The result is an intense and very physical problem, characteristics that are congenial for me and so that I could confirm the evaluation made by Julien himself, who has already climbed several similar problems.
Further, Leonardo, compared with Tra un tiglio e un oleandro, another extreme problem climbed in October 2002 and evaluated 8b, is definitely harder.
Mauro Calibani