2021’s Top Five Male Boulderers
8a.nu is an institution that has ranked climbers since the early 2000s. Some of these climbers have only begun to break out.
2021 was a strong year for bouldering. Anecdotally, it is difficult to remember a year of such progression since the 2016 establishment of Burden of Dreams. While developers canvassed the globe fleshing out the problems in many of the world’s newly popularized and famous areas, the context of difficulty changed. No longer did V14 come close to the peak of bouldering. Instead, 2021 showed the progress that could be made.
In the men’s category, 8a.nu ranked the ascents of numerous hard boulderers. For female boulderers click here.
1 – Matt Fultz – 12,199
American boulderer Matt Fultz led this year after having his strongest season of climbing. Despite the pandemic and the challenges that can come along with it, Fultz took down Sleepwalker V16, Grand Illusion V16 and Creature from the Black Lagoon V16. Intermingled with these exceptional repeats, Fultz also established Blood Eagle, a fluid V13 in Red Rocks. Fultz also established Lil Jon V14 and Sound of Violence V15 in Joe’s Valley. These are two of the most challenging problems in the area.
Fultz also put up numerous other boulder problems and continued to push himself by trying other hard repeats like Insomniac V16. In terms of pyramid building, Fultz also developed well climbing 11 total problems between V14 and V15 and 24 problems between V12 and V13. Fultz may have the capacity to climb Return of the Sleepwalker V17, especially considering that he sent Sleepwalker and Squoze V14 and Trieste V14 in the same day.
2 – Elias Iagnemma – 12,016
Italian Elias Iagnemma had a strong year filled with hard ascents and downgrades. Though it appears he took V16 for Gioia on 8a, he described the problem as 8C/+ after climbing the problem with a knee pad. The route was originally put up as V15 by the BC-based Christian Core but received an upgrade by Adam Ondra upon his repeat. Iagnemma’s ascent was interesting because it raised a question regarding the ethical use of knee pads on problems where the first ascent went without.
With that aside, Iagnemma’s pyramid is more prolific than Fultz’s. He climbed 31 V11, 19 V12, 19 V13, 10 V14, and 7 V15 to join his ascent of Gioia.
3 – Martin Stranik – 11,947
Father and Czech World Cup climber Martin Stranik climbed into two bronze medals during the Lead World Cup season, but also managed to develop some challenging first ascents. Stranik established Black Panther, a beautiful V15 and managed to repeat Double Backflip, taking V15 for the slash graded 8C/8C+.
Although he climbed many fewer boulders than Fultz or Iagnemma, the strong Czech climber continues to be a vital resource for developing hard and unique boulder problems.
4 – Killian Chabrier – 11,783
French climber Killian Chabrier climbed many hard problems this year. He downgraded the Story of Two Worlds, a classic Dave Graham V15 that, with new beta, has become more manageable. Alex Megos popularized the idea of heaving different ratings for different methods, but it appears Chabrier has decided to rate the problem based on the easiest way it can be climbed. This seems like a fair sentiment.
Chabrier did not stop there. He also proposed a slash grade to Dreamtime. The Swiss classic has seen an unprecedented number of ascents this year.
4 – Shinichiro Nomura – 11,783
Shinichiro Nomura appears to only record his best ascents and so it is difficult to get a complete gauge of his pyramid. With that said, he logged seven V14 and five V15 boulder problems, as well as one V16 he has yet to log on 8a. The problem in question is Ryuichi Murai’s Floatin’, a new V16 that has become one of the coolest boulder problems in the world. Nomura also establish a new V15 called Loca.
The 24-year-old rock climber and researcher will be one to watch in these coming months as he appears to take down a new V14 or harder with every passing week. Nomura recently completed Nehanna V14/V15 and Prethem V14 and hopes to link them to complete the resistance based Nayuta V16 in Gero, Gifu.
Disclaimer
The 8a.nu ranking game has been in use since the early 2000s and works with two simple assumptions: The grading scale is linear, and on-sighting a certain grade is about as hard as redpointing 3 grades harder. An 8a redpoint gets you 1000 points. For every (+) grade, the score changes by 50 points. The other modifiers are onsight (+147) flash (+53), toprope (-50), second go (+2), Trad (+33) and FA (+33). Keep in mind that it’s a game.
To that effect, many of the world’s strongest boulderers do not use 8a.nu, but these rankings are useful for seeing the difficulty background of those near the top of the field.
Featured image of Shinichiro Nomura on his FA of Loca V15. Photo by Ray Sugimoto.
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