Alex Puccio Sends Her Fifth V14 with Heritage
Alex Puccio has climbed her fifth V14 with a send of Heritage in Valle Bavona less than a year after winning gold at the Vail World Cup 2018.
With nearly 30 V13 sends to her name and five V14 problems, it likely won’t be long until Puccio aims for a V15. “I have been pretty out of shape for me and still have a lot of work to do to get back where I was, this is why I didn’t try Heritage for the first few weeks of my trip,” said Puccio. “I then decided to try it because it was always on my list of climbs I wanted to do and my friends were most psyched for this area.”
Puccio managed to reach the lip on day three, a not-so-bad hold that is past the crux. “The last move isn’t suppose to be that hard, but at my height you can’t use the normal left foot hold that makes the move not so bad,” she said. “Instead I had to use a really high, and too high for me even, foot that made me be in this weird balled up position where then I had to punch to the last hold before the top out.”
The warm and humid weather wasn’t perfect for climbing there wasn’t any wind to dry sweaty hands. Puccio had a lot of trouble staying on the low-percentage holds.
“Finally on the last day It because a bit breezy and had some cloud coverage,” said Puccio. “The high was still at 17-18C/ 62-64F, But the breeze made it way less humid. For my warm up I decided to do the top half one time and then I sat for a few minutes to chill.
“I looked at the climb and had a special feeling. I didn’t want to overthink it or psych myself out, but I had a feeling where I knew it was time. For my second try I decided to go from the start and the magic happened. I was standing on top of the boulder.”
Puccio has said that she’s isn’t going to focus on making the Olympics and therefore can focus on only bouldering, as opposed to those training for bouldering, speed and lead.
Puccio on New Base Line V14
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