Pair Of Adam Ondra Interviews

In the climbing world there are top-level climbers that participate in the online climbing scene, some who are lukewarm on the idea and some who ignore it completely.  Fortunately for us Adam Ondra seems to fall into the first category.  Not only is he consistently out climbing at the highest levels in pretty much every discipline, he always seems to be available for an interview or explaining his thoughts on his 8a.nu scorecard .  The best part of all?  His thoughts are actually interesting to read!  Did I mention he’s not even 18 yet?

Ondra recently did 2 interviews I thought were worth sharing, the first of which was done with CzechClimbing.com.  In that interview he discusses his recent repeat of Golpe De Estado (5.15b) and clarifies how the route broke down for him:

The hold was not a resting jug, but it helped. Before Estado Critico was more of an endurance problem, now there is a definite crux (but for Golpe it is not the crux). Estado Critico is now significantly harder, from 8c+ to 9a. Golpe de Estado is harder just a little. I had been really worried about this move, but the move itself felt easier while linking than normally while working. But I fell one more time even higher.  If Chris had had doubts about the classification, so now it’s surely at least 9b.

The other interview, done with Russian site Baurock.ru, covers a wide range of topics including Ondra’s thoughts on the grades of old routes compared with newer routes in Spain:

It was big problem 4 or 5 years ago. But recently, the grades are getting bit stiffer. The most obvious cases were downgraded. Regarding to 9a grade, if we simplify it, the things in the past were like this: at first, Action Directe was graded by Wolfgang Gullich 11 UIAA, what was considered to be 8c+/9a in French grading. Therefore, when Alex sent Open Air, he thought it should be harder than Action Directe, thus he proposed only 9a. Around 2000, when it was generally accepted that Action Directe is 9a, everything was a mess. Therefore we had to and still have to upgrade and downgrade some routes in my opinion. Regarding to Spain, one has to add that most of the routes are endurance problems. Recent climbers have endurance on different level than 15 years ago, when the routes tend to be more bouldery and vertical. Maximum height was usually 20 meters, power endurance was the thing. It is very probable that if some climber from middle of 90’s had opportunity to try some average 8c+ in Spain of today, he would not find it soft.

CzechClimbing Adam Ondra Interview

Baurock.ru Adam Ondra Interview