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Czech Ondra sets up world's toughest climbing route

Prague - Czech climber Adam Ondra set the world's toughest route standard after a climb in Norway on Sunday following four years of preparations, his spokeswoman said.

The 24-year-old Ondra "established the world's first 9c route, currently the hardest and only route of this grade in the world," spokeswoman Zuzana Musilova said on Monday.

Ondra bolted the route in the Hanshelleren Cave in Flatanger, Norway in 2013 and spent months there training for the 20-minute climb to stretch the broadly used French numerical system for grading climb difficulty to 9c from a previous 9b+.

"At the end of the route when I knew I did it, I had one of the strangest emotions ever," Ondra said.

"I clipped the anchor and I could not even scream. All I could do was just hang in the rope, feeling tears in my eyes. It was too much joy, relief and excitement all mixed together."

Last November, he became the third man in the world to climb the Dawn Wall in the Yosemite Valley, considered the world's toughest multi-pitch route.

Ondra, a three-time world champion and three-time World Cup winner, spent eight days on the 914-metre (yard) climb, beating the previous record by 11 days.

Ondra has also climbed all three 9b+ routes in the world. Only one of them was repeated by American climber Chris Sharma.

Last year, the International Olympic Committee approved climbing as a sport for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.

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