Lucien Martinez masters Three Degrees of Separation at Céüse

25-year-old French climber Lucien Martinez has started the Céüse season with a bang with his repeat of Three Degrees of Separation, a huge 9a+ sports climb bolted initially by local Arnaud Petit and freed in 2007 America’s Chris Sharma via a more direct line via past enormous dynoes. The only other climber to have mastered these jumps is Adam Ondra in 2015, who had previously described the sequence as containing "some of the craziest moves I've ever seen." To give an idea of the difficulties, in 2014 Germany's Alexander Megos explained "with that dyno I don't stand a chance."

Martinez invested circa 40 attempts on this king line before sticking the crux Tuesday, immediately before the weather changed considerably at it started snowing again. Speaking to planetmountain.com, he stated "without a shadow of doubt this is the hardest, and also the most beautiful, route I’ve ever climbed. It's nice when both these factors combine on the same route."

While on the theme of hard and beautiful routes, first ascended by Chris Sharma at Céüse: Biographie is located just a few meters to the left…

TOPO: climbing at Ceuse, France

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Boooom!! Lucien Martinez @lumartinez_93 just made "Three Degrees of Separation" 9a/+ in Ceuse, France. This kingline with huge dynos was climbed only by @chris_sharma and @adam.ondra themselves!! . #frenchtouch #climbing #rockclimbing #ceuse #france #line #grimper #outsideisthegoodside

A post shared by Jan Novak (@jan_novak_photography) on Apr 4, 2019 at 8:33am PDT