THE EVOLUTION OF DIFFICULTY IN SPORTCLIMBING.
Cristian Brenna speaks about the quest of the new limits of difficulty rock climbing.
On September 14, 1991 the German climber Wolfgang Güllich, after eleven days of tries, spread during ten weeks, free climbs Action Directe, the first 9a of the history.
Twelve years have passed since then. How has the evolution of difficulty in sport climbing continued? And why were more than ten years necessary to see the difficulty scale increase only half a grade? Let’s try to give an answer to these questions, analyzing the facts and making a few considerations.
After Action Directe a harder grade has been proposed only for five other routes: Akira, Orujo, Elfe, Biographie and La Rambla.
The first one is climbed in the by now far away 1995, as a still unknown Fred Rhouling proposes the fateful 9b for his last achievement, Akira in the Vilhonneur cave.
Inevitable the criticisms, some of them ferocious. The only certainty is that, as of today, after eight years, Akira remains unrepeated. Remarkable the fact that another Rhouling’s extreme route, Hugh, after the first repetition of “Jolly” Lamberti, followed by the ones of the French Bollinger and the Japanese Koyamada, has seen confirmed its grade 9a, proposed at the beginning.
Akira is certainly an atypical route. It is a line along the roof of a cave, two meters from the ground, and it becomes progressively an overhang. The rope is used in the second part of the route, to protect the last section. The belay is eight meters above the ground.
It is useless to carry on polemics about the grade, at least until the route is repeated. On the other side it’s also true that climbers with a certain experience are able to get an idea of the real difficulty of a route already before they redpoint it.
Anyway polemics about these topics are just normal and can degenerate in such a way that they tamper with the value of the sport performance.
This happened, for instance, with Orujo, redpointed in 1998 by Bernabe Fernandez, who proposed the grade 9a. In the reality Bernabe had climbed the route using three artificial holds, but he later discovered that they weren’t necessary. A year later he returned with fresh power and redpointed again the route, without using two of the three artificial holds. The fact caused a lot of criticism, especially among the Spanish climbers, and the route was downgraded right away, at least from the moral point of view.
Still about “devaluation” is the story of Fred Nicole’s “Elfe”. The Swiss climber redpoints the project, but he hasn’t a precise idea of the difficulty and proposes an indicative grade, varying between 8c and 9a+. That comes down to 9a, after the repetition of Klem Loskot, and still lower to 8c/8c+, after the fast redpoints of Iker Pou and Dave Graham.
The evolution continues. Until July 18, 2001, when American Chris Sharma succeeds in redpointing Biographie, then renamed Realization. The route becomes the first confirmed 9a of sport climbing. Strange the fact that, although it hasn’t yet got any repetition, all the aspirants have already confirmed the difficulty, before having redpointed it.
From the beginning Biographie becomes the reference point of the sector, because of the beauty of the route, the purity of the line (no chipped holds) and the uniqueness of the location. Ceüse, in fact, is one of the most romantic and known crags in the world. The route has easy access and is well visible.
The chronicle of the extreme finishes on March 23 of this year, when the Spanish Ramon Julien succeeds in redpointing an old project of Daniel Andrada, the extention of Alex Huber’s La Rambla, proposed grade 9a+.
Here is the picture of an evolving world, to all appearance waking up after a period of sleep. The last achievements seem to give new power to the race toward difficulty. This thanks to a new generation of climbers, many of whom coming from oversee, super motivated to climb with smaller and smaller holds, on longer and longer sections. The new warriors deal with climbing in a natural way, and particularly, want to have fun.
They are not bothered by the result at all costs and climb on everything, from bouldering to forty-meter-long routes.
They don’t participate, except for rare exceptions, to competitions, that are very tiring at psychological level, because they oblige the mind to long concentration periods.
To the competitions, instead, participate almost all the best European climbers, consequently absent in the race toward the highest difficulty in sport climbing outside.
This diversification is one of the main reasons why today the American top climbers are a step above the Europeans in outdoor climbing. They live the sport activity in a much freer way, free from certain mental schemes that we have in Europe. For instance, they give only relative importance to dry training, preferring far more climbing outside, if possible in new places, accustomed as they are to the great spaces and the concept of “traveling”.
Another reason, definitely more “earthly”, are the sponsors and the strategies of the companies, which financially endorse the athletes. American companies give more importance to outdoor activity, to the detriment of the indoor one. In the States it is therefore possible a professionalism different from ours, because different are the requirements of the market. In synthesis, Americans are paid to travel around the world and climb harder and harder routes, while Europeans are paid to win competitions.
These comments regard the state of the art of difficulty on rock. But there are other aspects to point out concerning this issue. The extreme routes, like the records in the traditional sports, are nothing else than the top of a movement that conceals a huge crowd, in continuous evolution. Something has changed in climbing, after overcoming the critical phase a few years ago, when it looked as if the movement had reached a saturation phase, today things have started again with new power. The new vital energy comes from the success of the gyms, reservoir of the beginners who start climbing.
In this context the race toward difficulty must be interpreted in the right way, because it is positive for the sport image, as evidence of enthusiasm and desire to confront. And in the same way, for other aspects, are competitions useful.
In the race towards difficulty it becomes essential to maintain the awareness that the physiological limits are still far away and that there is still a long way to go. It is necessary the example of the protagonists, who should feel responsible for their actions. Because of that it is determining to have respect for the rock and transmit it to the new generations. It is also important not to chip holds and preserve the crags for the climbers who will come after us.
Cristian Brenna