Steve MccClure
The Adam Ondra Blitz
Picture by Keith Sharples
Adam Ondra came to Britain! A very big deal indeed. Adam is the best sport climber in the world, no questions asked. Chris Sharma, who has done a bit of climbing, said he was totally blown away by Ondra’s performance! He went direct to Malham and directly to try some of my routes that have laid untouched for years…
I went up to Malham cove to catch up with him, its been two years since I last climbed with him and I was keen to see how he was doing. But I already knew how good he’d become. Al Austin texted me on the way to say “at least you’ll know how it feels to be a punter at the crag now”. Good style, just turning up and going climbing, why should people know his agenda? I guess we assume that with his status there will be some kind of press release announcing his movements and selling tickets for the display. But no: Just him and a mate, over for a week. No team of photographers, no film crew or helicopters. I arrived at the crag and there they were, just another team trying their routes.
Adam climbed a lot of stuff in a week, the most anyone has ever climbed by a large amount. It sounds impossible almost, but then we remember he is just at that new level, away up there by himself, a good notch above anyone else really. It was exciting for me as seem to have been operating in a vacuum for years putting up new routes with no one to gauge them with. You never know their real difficulty and you always stand to be knocked down The British climbing public are very fast to throw mud, and though grades are not that critical to me, having everything down graded would have led to a real beating!!
But it ended up being perfect, Adam nailed a load of stuff and commented that though our grades were stiff they were not super hard, so that helps put a sock in all the Brits that think they are so good with their super hard grades that would be harder than any of Europe. He also found Overshadow hard and didn’t manage a repeat, so I wasn’t being a bumbly. But he did do Northern Lights and North Star confirming quality and grade. His visit was almost like me climbing the routes again, a confirmation perhaps being just as important than the actual first ascent. And if anyone knows his stuff it’s certainly Ondra!!
May 10, 2010 10:14 AM
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