Mélissa Le Nevé shines on Golden Ticket 8c+ at Red River Gorge
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Andy Wickstrom
Back in autumn 2012 Mélissa Le Nevé redpointed her first 8c+, 50 words for Pump and Southern Smoke at Red River Gorge, USA. At the time the French climber witnessed "one of my most inspiring experience in climbing", namely the onsight ascent of Golden Ticket carried out by Adam Ondra.
Evidently that moment left its mark because now the 29-year-old has herself repeated this test. Le Nevé required three weeks of effort, demonstrating that she’s equally at home on huge stamina outings as on short explosive tests.
In the past Mélissa Le Nevé has bouldered up to 8B+ - in 2017 she became the first women to send an 8B+ at the notoriously difficult Fontainebleau in France- while in 2014 she checked in with the first female ascent of Wallstreet, the world’s first 8c freed in 1987 by Wolfgang Güllich in the Frankenjura, Germany.
For climbing history aficionados: in November 2012 Ondra was gunning for the world’s first 9a onsight but when he descended off Golden Ticket he admitted that the route had felt slightly easier, 8c+ and not 9a as initially suggested in 2009 by first ascentionist Adam Taylor. The first 9a onsight in the world came about 4 months later, in March 2013 at the hands of Alexander Megos who surprised everyone with his historic ascent of Estado Critico at Siurana in Spain.
Links: Instagram Mélissa Le Nevé, FB Mélissa Le Nevé, Petzl
