Adam Ondra flashes another two 8C boulders!

Adam Ondra has once again redefined the limits of bouldering by flashing two 8C boulder problems within the span of a week in Switzerland: The Lion's Share at Brione and Celestite in Val Bavona. The Lion's Share was first ascended by Aidan Roberts in April 2023, while Celestite was established by Dave Graham two months later. Originally graded 8C+, Ondra believes Celestite is half a grade lower.

8C flash is currently the apex of moden bouldering. The first climber to flash 8C boulder was Yannick Flohé, who in June 2025 raced up Foundation's Edge in Fionnay, Switzerland. Jules Marchaland followed suit in August on The Power of Now Direct, and Ondra joined the club in November with his own flash of Foundation's Edge.

It goes without saying that Ondra's ability to decode intense, complex sequences on first go has almost no equals and with this latest achievement, he has now further solidified his position as the world's most versatile and accomplished climber, across all disciplines.

Congrats Adam! Was this the reason for your Brione trip last week?
Thank you very much. I'm definitely pretty happy about flashing Lion's share. I would say yes, I did travel to Brione specifically for this boulder, but I also had some more in mind. I think there are like three 8C's in Brione that I really wanted to flash, and so I trained the last two months with the goal of maybe flashing more 8C's in mind.

This comes after Foundation's Edge at Fionnay
Yes, I thought after the last autumn success, it might be interesting to maybe keep going in that direction a bit more, maybe climb some more 8Cs or maybe even some 9A's

For example?
Alphane. I was making good progress on it but then I was stopped by my left knee that did not really like some of the drop knees and heel hooks. I wasn't really sure if it was wise to continue trying it and in the end I just thought "OK, let's train more on the board and let the knee recover."

Then last week you went to Brione
On Tuesday and Wednesday. On Tuesday I tried Deep Fake put up by Nathan Phillips and originally given 8C+. I think it's been repeated a few times. Only Stefano Carnati thinks it's 8C; it's definitely a morphological boulder and if you're as tall as Nathan Phillips it's definitely more in the 8C+ realm. In any case, a good friend of mine Martin Schwez is exactly the same size as me in terms of the arm span and how high we can reach, and he gave me the perfect beta. I actually made it up to the very last move going into the lip, but then I don't even know what happened. I just simply fell, even though I definitely had the margin to finish it off. That was definitely a bit disappointing.

Did you get it second go?
Actually I didn't even give it a second try. I just wanted to save all the energy to try Lion's share the next day.

Good call!
The boulder boils down to the first two extremely hard moves, big moves on tiny crimps where a lot of the difficulty is in being 100% precise. I was extremely lucky to get it perfectly right first go! The stand start itself is like a three-move 8A+. Jakob Schubert actually thinks it's more 8A, which I reckon is quite extreme. I had to fight the most in the 8A+ stand start, which is this big arm span and then crazy crossover foot move where I almost fel off but somehow I didn't let it go, and I certainly did not fall off the very last hard move from the undercling into the jug. Remembering my experience from the day before, that was definitely very, very stressful and I think that's why I put so much energy into that single move. When I reached the top and I was just so exhausted!

Second 8C flash! But we now know there's even more!
So I returned home, trained for a day, rested in Arco, and then went back to Switzerland on Saturday. This time I wanted to check out Val Bavona. Pietro Vidi was there and he showed me all the moves on his 8C Captain Nemo, which I think is quite notorious for being quite technical and knee-bary, but I thought it could be my style.

How did that go?
Oh I didn't flash it. I actually fell off the very first move, which is probably the most tricky, a really tricky kneebar. But within a few tries, I made it work and sent it. And then conditions got a bit humid, so we just moved to Celestite.

For those who don't know this area?
The rock is sort of a river polished, so a bit of humidity is actually pretty good. Celestite is a notorious boulder from Dave Graham, ultra knee-bary, very technical kneebars actually. It was recently repeated by Pietro Vidi so he gave me all the beta, along with Giuliano Cameroni.

And you went for the flash?
I think nobody really believed that I could flash it. I certainly did not really believe I would as the boulder problem is notoriously strange and technical, all about weird body positions. Seeing that I was there, it was obvious that, yes, I would just give it a flash attempt. I said to myself "probably it's not gonna happen", but I ended up flashing it! I have to say I do feel it was a really, really good attempt, probably even more mind-blowing than sending Lion's Share!

It was originally graded 8C+
Yes, and repeated by Francesco Bernardino who didn't downgrade it. Pietro and I both reckon it's 8C and I'm more than happy to take that!