Adam Ondra flashes his fourth 8C boulder, Emotional Landscapes at Maltatal in Austria

The climbing world is used to Adam Ondra leading the way but he's on such a roll at the moment that it'll take quite a while for the rest of the field to match his antics. After flashing two 8C boulder problems towards the end of February, and in doing so bringing his tally of 8C flashes to an unprecedented three, on 11 March the 33-year old added another to the first-go list, namely Emotional Landscapes.

Located in Austria's Maltatal, this ultra-classic problem was put up by Klem Loskot in 2002 and was, at the time, one of the first of this grade. Ondra got the beta from Michael Piccolruaz, as well as via a quick video call to Jakob Schubert, prior to his astounding send. He had started the day by getting extremely close to flashing Bügeleisen sit (8C), but after failing on that and after flashing Air (8B), he then produced what he describes as "probably my proudest flash of a boulder problem." He "warmed down" so to speak by flashing Wrestling with an Alligator (8B).

Ondra's bouldering rampage is without equals and although it feels as if he is almost trivialising the grade, it cannot be overstated how hard 8C still is, even by today's standards. The bar has been set extremely high once again.

The full write-up about his unprecedented fortnight is online here: www.adamondra.com