We have entered the hot period of the season, not only because of the very warm temperatures but also because in the coming weeks I will have many commitments, related to the first races of the year and new projects. In the last period, after having tried Excalibur and then spending a lot of time in Pizarra, the cliff near Arco that I was talking about in the last post, I dedicated myself a lot to training always in Arco and Innsbruck, in a beautiful and huge gym.

That of the Austrian city is one of the most beautiful gyms in the world training, there is everything, and it will also be home of the first stage of the Lead World Cup on June 25th and 26th: I therefore became familiar with the environment, I tried the inclinations and I looked for the feeling with the wall. Last year in Innsbruck I finished second so I would like to improve, but it is never easy to make predictions in the first comp of the season, so let’s keep fingers crossed. Then after the Austrian stage I’ll take part in Villars in Switzerland and Chamonix and Briancon in France, always in July. 

But it is not over, because the competitive summer will be very intense and after the World Cup stages, in mid-August I will take part at the European Championship in Munich, Germany. Here too I hope to do well and to arrive charged after the previous commitments, it will be essential to manage my body and both mental and physical energies. That of Munich will be an important event, which will then be the watershed of my commitments: in fact, from there I will leave directly for the “great final” of my summer, direction Norway!

Together with my girlfriend Sara, in a van, we will travel several thousand kilometers to get directly from Munich to Flatanger, in the cave that houses the most difficult route in the world: Silence. The goal is obviously to start trying this beautiful and legendary climb, a 9c freed by Adam Ondra in 2017 and that after him no one has ever been able to repeat. I do not expect to climb it on this journey but in the meantime I want to get my hands on it. Adam had taken three years, I will stay a month in Norway, but it is the beginning of a long-term project. Clearly I have to see how this first experience goes and then I hope to come back.

I can’t wait to go back to Flatanger, where two years ago I was able to repeat Change, a 9b+ that is located in the same cave as Silence and that in 2012 had always been freed by Adam, as the first 9b+ in the world. I will keep you updated in the next posts…