The history of "9a second go" and the future of sport climbing

[9b editor]

"9a second go" has already 2 years history.

The awkward dynamic move in the upper section of "Heiliger Gral", 9a, photo by Vojtech Vrzba


Year 2008

08/11/24, Adam Ondra, Halupca 1979, Misja Pec, "Soft, Second GO I had not even wanted to send it that try, but suddenly I was on top, I do not know about grade - am I really so strong or am I just SO lucky recently? pretty good route though"

08/11/29, Ramon Julian, Fuck The system, Santa Linya, "Soft 2 intents mes 1 de l'any passat, em sembla mes 8c+ que 9a."


Year 2009

09/08/23, Patxi Usobiaga, Hades, Nassereith, "some time for myself to relax a little bit" (referred photos in Adam Ondra report about his own ascent)

09/09/12, Adam Ondra, Der Heilige Gral, Frankenjura, "Soft, Second GO Magical! Has not been dry since 2005! Maybe easy 9a, but way harder than most of other 8c+ in fj" (referred article written by Adam Ondra with photos by Vojtech Vrzba)

09/09/12, Ramon Julian, Supernowa, Vadiello, "2 intents sense contar lo comu de nowa i powerade. Resistencia casi sense repòs. Final de reglets i llençament cabron a l'ultim pas." (ok, he'd done Nowa and powerade before)

Photo by Danilo Pereyra




What about the future ?
Who knows if 9a will be soon a warm up :-)

For sure 9a second go is one of the best results for a climber.
It opens the doors to new explorations on rock:

1) 9a flash and onsight

Contenders are not just Adam, Patxi and Ramon, Chris Sharma was very close to flash The fly (and another 9a in Rodellar ?).
The "race" is going to become something like this:


2) confirmed and/or new proposed 9b after work

Even if " the question I think isn't whether it is possible to do something or not.
At the moment the problem is that we haven't got enough time for everything.
We need to train for competitions, go to competitions, and only afterwards climb on rock.
I decide to climb routes fast, or send hard routes, but always as fast as possible because I like climbing and two or three weeks, maybe a month, isn't enough to try a 9b or a 9b+.
It’s because of this that I haven’t tried harder routes than La Rambla or other 8c+ or 9a's.
I think it's possible to climb harder, but you need to invest a lot of time to succeed ", after the above mentioned 9as second go, it seems now possible someone different from Chris Sharma will "risk" and find his own time to dedicate to climb his first 9b.
Golpe de estado is very close to where Ramonet lives ... not so far from Patxi too and as Sharma said "Para alcanzar el próximo nivel este va a ser el método: proyectos cercanos para poderlos trabajar bien, sin prisas."
And in Rodellar there are the two Dani Andrada 9bs.

3) 9a+ second go

9b after work could be one of the "crux" moves to reach this goal.

4) 9a+ flash.

Considering an historical 9a+ Usobiaga and Ramonet already climbed it, so at the moment it remains an "open dream" just for Adam Ondra.


In the meantime:

- Chilam Balam is always waiting a repetition.

- Sharma has one 9b+ project in Oliana (and another 9b in Margalef):

- Dani Andrada has the following 9b+ project in Rodellar:

It will be an exciting game to play for them.
And an interesting show to see as spectators :-)