Michael Piccolruaz flashes 8B boulder in Austria's Maltatal

On his first-ever visit to the Maltatal valley in Austria, South Tyrol’s Michael Piccolruaz made a flash ascent of Wrestling with an alligator, the famous 8B problem first climbed by Austrian powerhouse Klem Loskot in 1999. In March this year the problem received its first female ascent at the hands of former World Champion Anna Stöhr and although it has been flashed before - for instance by Jakob Schubert in 2015 - this is now Piccolruaz’s hardest flash to date. The climber from Val Gardena, who freed his first 8C in Magic Wood last year, told planetmountain.com the following:

WRESTLING WITH AN ALLIGATOR FLASH by Michael Piccolruaz

Matatal is famous among boulderers for its King Lines put up by Klem Loskot: Bügeleisen and also Emotional Landscapes. And certainly also because of the sitstart to Bügeleisen, added by Nalle Hukkataival in 2014. Klem also made the first ascents of a host of various other problems, such as Power of Goodby 8B and Wrestling with an alligator.

I’ve always been interested in trying these famous problems and I’ve wanted to travel to Maltatal for a long time. Last week the time finally came and with the South Tyrollean climbing team we went for a quick trip from Thursday to Sunday.

I’m always keen on making a decent flash attempt on a hard problem, and after having watched various videos, I reckoned Wrestling with an alligator suited my climbing style. So this was my main aim for this trip. On the second day of the trip we made our way to the problem but after warming up I wasn’t sure if I should try it, since I didn’t feel that great and my skin was anything but good. But some of the others in the team started working it and this got me psyched and I simply had to give it a go. i checked out all the holds and cleaned them carefully before sitting down at the start. And then lucky things went as planned, I climbed without making any mistakes, suddenly I was up on the finishing slab and all I though was: stay calm and finish the problem. It was then that I realized I’d flashed my hardest problem and succeeded in my big objective.

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