Refering once again to Sharma, although he may have been 20 years then he was not a climber from nowhere. Pushed out into the gym wall at the age of 12, he soon discovered his vocation and the gift which had been given to him. Two years later he won the U.S. Championships in bouldering, then the next year he opened the route Necessary Evil 8c+, which was then the most difficult route on the American soil. Sharma has combined his two passions: for travel and climbing, in one activity - travelling around the globe doing both extremely hard boulders and climbing routes (including the DWS). If you add his nice looks and endearing character to his moderation, modesty, even in avoiding evaluating his realizations (does it ring a bell?); and contemplations over the idea of climbing itself – he’s become the ideal candidate for the posters, not only advertising bold companies, but also as the "face" of the climbing in general, not without making some wee boobs though...

The center of gravity moved explicitly to Spain, which in the meantime gave birth to large number of climbers up to the world mark. If we were to collect circa 30 climbers being able to send 9a - about half of them would be the Spaniards (including Catalans and Basques, of course). Ahead of the pack stayed for a long time Daniel Andrada Jimenez, Josune Bereciartu Urruzola and the "enfant terrible" Bernabe Fernandez, who with the course of were encouraged by the "young guns" such as Ramón Julian Puigblanque, Eduardo Marin Garcia, Patxi Usobiaga Lakunza and Eva Lopez Rivera, to name just a few of them.

The battlefield of generations was designated in Siurana on unrepeated since 1994 line La Rambla by Alex Huber, who according to contemporary trends (as well as his practice), “slightly” undergraded the route to 8c+. But for all top climbers (not only Spanish) consistently falling from La Rambla it became clear that a little higher grade was at stake, and this looked like a tempting possibility to extend the line over another seven meters... The winner turned out to be Ramonet, who, although known for his quick repetitions, dedicated to the route (including extension) two years of work and around 50 attempts - in the intervals between working as an electrician on the railway. So, La Rambla Direct (Extension) became in 2003 the second undisputed 9a+. And if this were not enough, Ramon Julian announced that in his opinion, the extension did not increase the difficulty of the line! Well, once again Huber lost some covers in climbing magazines...

History, however, can still change a bit here, because a little earlier Flex Luthor in the Fortress of Solitude was opened due to Tommy Caldwell’s activity. The rate was known under the banner of "the-most-difficult-route-I’ve-ever-done", suggesting simultanously something around 9a+. Another pretender was the passage carried out by Yuij Hirayama - Flat Mountain (the name is a translation of his Japanese surname into English) in Futagoyama, which had racked the brain of the Japanese for almost 14 years. But the Land of the Rising Sun is so far a kind of "terra incognita" for top climbers successfully omitting it.