Sean Bailey adds Alphane (Font 9A) to CV

• Tuesday 10th December 2024

Sean Bailey has made the sixth ascent of Shawn Raboutou’s bouldering testpiece Alphane (Font 9A) at Chironico in Canton Ticino, Switzerland.

With the absolute minimum of social media noise, Sean Bailey announced his ascent of the Swiss testpiece by simply posting ‘Alphane (green check)’ beneath a screenshot of himself halfway along the traverse of the famous problem!

Having failed to qualify in 2023 for this year's Olympic Games in Paris Bailey turned his attention to rock in 2024. In February he added to the difficulty of Evilution (Font 8C) with a two-move sitter to give Devilution (Font 8C+). He then travelled to Finland and came very close to repeating Burdon of Dream. Fast forward to this autumn and Bailey has been on a roll making the first ascent of Shaolin (Font 9A) as well as making what is believed to be a rapid ascent of Floatin (Font 8C+). Previously, Bailey repeated Alex Megos’ Ceuse testpiece, Bibliography (F9b+).