Luca Zardini sends 8c+ at Misja Pec

TWENTY YEARS OF CLIMBING PASSION by Luca Zardini

I wasn't expecting all this fuss! I've been taken aback by all this esteem and I'd like to thank everyone... I'm definitely really satisfied with my performance on a route that offers the style of climbing I like most: endurance, technique and power all at the same time, but but as we all know 8c+ has by now become a grade that is absolutely normal for many climbers... Of course, doing it aged 41 and almost 20 years after my first 8c is, in itself, somewhat special!

What drives me is my enormous love for this sport, for the feelings that climbing give me, and it's the very same passion that for two decades drove me to take part in international competitions (in 1992 I placed second overall in the Lead World Cup). The beauty of these past few years is that these results are harder to achieve and, therefore, even more beautiful.

Gone are the years when I could send a route in just a couple of go's and I quickly ran out of things to do. Now, thanks to work and family commitments and the limited time available I savour every single climbing day as something special... just one climbing day per week in winter.

I often set off alone (as I result I've been doing a lot of bouldering lately, cleaning freeing many new problems in my area around Cortina completely alone). And then, in search of something new, I have to drive for at least two and a half hours.... So when I go, I hope the weather will hold, that I'm on form and that the conditions are just right... I also have to live with some niggling injuries, they're part of the game and the result of the masses of training that my arms have had to endure... There aren't a loads of great moments, but I enjoy those that come by in a special manner since I know what it takes to get there.

The crag at Laggio has given me a lot during the last two years and I have to thank those who've bolted the lines to make a truly unique, beautiful place. I haven't got many photos of myself in action because I never have the time to go back and it's difficult to find someone willing for this. The routes I've climbed there are of astounding beauty and the climbing is both spectacular and highly satisfying. Having said that, it's important to travel and try other reference routes at different crags to give me an idea of what I've done and am doing... all this with the same love that drove me twenty years ago!

Luca Zardini