Jessica Pilz sends Papichulo (9a+) at Oliana

27-year-old Austrian climber Jessica Pilz has transferred her amazing competition form - that netted her bronze at the Paris 2024 Olympics - to the crag and has repeated her hardest sport climb to date, Papichulo at Oliana in Spain. Pilz made surprisingly quick work of the stamina fest established by Chris Sharma in 2008, and stunned onlookers and herself even when she clipped the chain yesterday afternoon after a mere 6 days of effort.

Speaking to planetmountain after the redpoint, Pilz explained "We arrived in Spain and we decided to climb two days on, one days off. On the 7th I checked out the starting boulder but since the rest of the route was wet and since I wanted to get used to wall and the length of the routes here, I decided to try the only route which was relatively dry, the 8c American Hustle, which I redpointed second go. The next day I tried the lower crux of Papichulo and also the first part of the second crux, but the upper section of the route was still wet. On my third day I managed to do all the moves of the second crux and got to try the third crux, but the top moves were still wet. On my fourth day I finally managed to try all the moves to the chain. I was now ready to start some proper redpoiunt attempts and on day 5 I fell once from the second crux, and then from the third. I wanted to try it the next morning but it was too hot, so I waited for better conditions in the afternoon. I set off at 16:00 and despite still being in the sun, conditions were nevertheless good enough for the redpoint! I have to admit I didn't really expect to send yesterday, especially since the day before I was just too tired to link the moves on the upper section."

As mentioned, this is Pilz's first 9a+ and in climbing Papichulo she has now skipped the 9a grade altogether.