Josh Ibbertson gets third ascent of Rainman (F9b)
- Monday 6th June 2022
On the eve of the Jubilee celebrations Josh Ibbertson was having a party of his own having made the third ascent of the UK’s hardest sport route, Rainman (F9b).
As previously reported, Josh has been blasting through the grades at a phenomenal rate doing his first F8a aged ten in February 2015 when he redpointed Innuendo (F8a) at Raco de les Espadelles, Margalef in Spain. Having ticked more than 100 routes harder that F8a by the time he was 14 Josh went on to make (what we think…) was the 11th ascent of Rainshadow (F9a) in December 2020. Click here for our report into Josh’s amazing ascent and the details of how he spent his early teenage years crushing in Europe.
In August of last year Josh did the 5th ascent of Northern Lights (F9a) at Kilnsey (click here for that report) before making the third ascent of Batman (F9a/+), the so-called ‘training’ link-up which starts up Bat Route before finishing up the headwall of Rainman (F9b).
‘Ignoring’ competition climbing, Josh concentrates solely on sport climbing. Climbing with Eder Lomba, as well as Toby Roberts, Josh has been trying Rainman since his success last August on Batman. Remarkably, Josh who is now just18 years old, made his ascent whilst in the midst of studying for his A-Levels!
UPDATE (21:15)
Having been in touch with Team Ibbertson, Climber can confirm that Josh is now in the midst of his A-Levels and – as psyched as we are for news of how he prepared for Rainman and how the send went – his A-Levels are more important so we’ll touch base with Josh again when he’s finished his exams.
We can however share with you that Josh nearly succeeded on repointing Rainman on his 18th birthday when he hit the hold at the end of the crux sequence but unfortunately failed to stick it. His successful redpoint finally came a week later however.