Olympic Gold Medalist Sends Iconic V14

Off the Wagon V14 (8b+) is one of the most famous problems in Europe. Bouldering’s biggest names of the past 20 years have all contributed to the development of the historic line, from Dave Graham and Chris Sharma, to Nalle Hukkataival and Shawn Raboutou. The boulder is located in the Bavona Valley of Switzerland and has a very odd start—climbers begin by standing on an old wooden wagon to reach the starting holds.

Graham originally found the problem in the mid-2000s and Sharma unlocked some key beta for the very powerful crux, but it was Hukkataival who got the first ascent in 2012, six years after first trying the problem. Since then, a V16 sit start variation has been climbed by some of the world’s strongest boulderers.

Tokyo Olympic gold medalist Alberto Ginés López, recently sent the original stand-start problem. “I’ve always dreamed about climbing this boulder, even [though] it’s not super hard it’s so amazing,” he said via Instagram. Ginés López climbed the problem with relative ease. In his first session, he was able to do the crux move five times in a row but the top was wet so he couldn’t finish it up. After a few warm-up tries, he sent the problem during he second session. You can watch his send footage below.

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Ginés López, 20, won gold in men’s sport climbing for his home country of Spain at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. In 2019, he won silver in lead at both the World Cup and European Championships. Last year he won the Red Bull Dual Ascent multi-pitch competition with his climbing partner Luka Potočar.

Off the Wagon Sit V16 was first sent by Shawn Raboutou in 2018. Jimmy Webb and and Daniel Woods picked up the second and third ascents respectively. Guiliano Cameroni made the fourth ascent after an epic battle with the problem. It took him over 100 days of effort across six years to send. You can watch Raboutou’s FA and Webb’s repeat below.