Yannick Flohé flashes 'Foundations Edge', 8C boulder at Fionnay

Yannick Flohé has made a remarkable flash ascent of Foundations Edge, the 8C boulder problem put up by Dave Graham in 2013 at Fionnay in Switzerland. In doing so, the 25-year-old German has become the first person in the world to flash 8C boulder. The problem has been repeated by a handful other extremely talented climbers in the past and some - inclduing Flohé himself - have suggested it is soft for the grade.

Writing on his IG account, Flohé stated "Yesterday I flashed my hardest boulder ever. I knew for a while that this is probably the most flashable 8C in the world, so I waited patiently for the right moment. I climbed most of the other lines in Fionnay first and waited for a day with good conditions and good skin.

My flash attempt went perfectly. I hit every hold just right and felt in great physical and mental shape this day.

To be fair, I don’t really think this is a proper 8C, even though no one has ever downgraded it and there’s for sure some softer ones out there. But grading is always tricky especially when you flash something so ima take the soft 8C like all the other greedy grade hunters on this one. Next stop Chamonix for the Lead World Cup."

8B+ has been flashed in the past, not by Flohé whose previous best was 8B, but by the likes of Daniel Woods, Jimmy Webb, Adam Ondra, Ned Feehally, Florian Wientjes, Aidan Roberts, Will Bosi, Tomoa Narasaki, Vadim Timonov, Kokoro Fujii, Moritz Perwitzschky and Jakob Schubert.