More Hard Sport Routes in Spain

Thanks to James for compiling this news

In more sport climbing news:

• Patxi Usobiaga:
  • repeated La Rambla (9a+) on Nov 27, 2007 at Siurana, Spain. The route had its first ascent by Ramón Julian Puigblanque and had been repeated by Edu Marin, Chris Sharma, and Andreas Bindhammer. Many of the climbers used different beta, where at one point, they were about 1 m (3.3 ft) to the right of the holds which Ramonet had used. Thus, some controversy arose when Ramonet suggested that the other climbers had not climbed La Rambla. (Source: 8a.nu)
  • See the end of this video interview with Edu Marin, where he talks about this dispute (in Spanish). And a rough English translation. (Note: The bulk of this interview is regarding a doping scandal involving Marin’s use of recreational drugs, resulting in his suspension from competition climbing. Maybe this means that he can just concentrate on hard ascents on real rock, although the indoor climbing comps are important to the Europeans.)
  • Speaking of competition climbing, Patxi won the 2007 World Cup (lead). I find the indoor competition climbing scene rather confusing. From what I can tell, the International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC) has a World Cup, which consists of a series of tournaments. The competitors are awarded points based on their rankings at each tournament. Then at thre end of the year, the points are aggregated to determine who has won the World Cup. (There are also World Championships and Rock Master tournaments.)
  • Patxi also had the first ascent of Faxismoaren txontxogiloak (9a) at Etxauri, Spain and repeated Estado Critico (8c+/9a) at Siurana. Some question exists about the grade of Estado since some of the climbers ask whether it is 8c+ or 9a. Adam Ondra, the Czech climbing prodigy, however, is emphatic that it is not 9a.
  • Also add a repeat of Escalatamasters (9a) to his impressive 2 week sending spree

• Ramón Julian Puigblanque repeated Definicion de resistencia democrata on Nov 20, 2007 at Terradets, Spain. Dani Andrada had the first ascent of this route and graded it 9a+. Ramonet, however, has graded it as 9a. In addition, Ramonet had the first ascent of M. Alba (9a) on Dec 2, 2007 at Savassona.

• Dave MacLeod has repeated A Muerte (9a) on Nov 26, 2007 at Siurana, Spain. This route was first climbed by Richard Simpson in 2006, despite having been bolted 10 years prior to his ascent. (It has also been repeated by Edu Marin and Dave Graham.) MacLeod is better known for his hard trad ascents such as Rhapsody (E11 7a, or 5.14c R) and To Hell and Back (E10 6c, or 5.13c X). (The latter had even been scheduled for a live BBC broadcast.) At the end of the trip, MacLeod also started working on La Rambla. The following links have descriptions of A muerte by Richard Simpson, Dave Graham, and MacLeod.

Dave MacLeod climbing A Muerte

Photo by Hot Aches Productions