Elias Iagnemma makes first ascent of The Big Slamm (Font 9A)
- Thursday 16th January 2025
Italian climber, Elias Iagnemma, has made the first ascent of Italy’s first Font 9A, The Big Slamm.
‘What a dream. It is incredible how it is a precise climb where every part of the body, shoe and flap of skin must deform perfectly in those minimal sandstone holds.’ Elias Iagnemma said after completing his first ascent.
In case the name isn’t on the tip of your tongue, Elias Iagnemma made the fourth ascent of Burdon of Dreams - Nalle Hukkataival’s 2016 Finnish Font 9A masterpiece – in March of last year. Iagnemma’s ascent came after Will Bosi’s second ascent and the third ascent by Simon Lorenzi.
Reporting his FA on his Instagram page Lagnemma confirmed that he’d spend considerable time working the new boulder: ‘After a year and a half of attempts in a total of 35 sessions I managed to get to the bottom of this King Line.’
He added:
‘It was truly a crazy fight between conditions, mind and body.
Many times I thought about throwing in the towel because I thought it was impossible to link all those extreme moves.’
Iagnemma also described the breakdown of The Big Slamm saying:
‘The boulder is divided into a first 8a Boulder movement, a second 8a (hard) Boulder movement and ends with a stand start of 8b/+.’
Iagnemma then compared The Big Slamm to Burdon of Dreams saying:
‘Regarding the grade evaluation I feel like giving it v17/9a since the intensity is very similar to that of BOD but with much more adverse environmental conditions since it is located in a valley where the humidity rate is very often at very high levels and finding the right conditions remains really difficult.
I am really happy with this climb of mine and to be able to share it with the entire climbing community.
That said, I now hope that some top climber decides to take a nice trip to southern Italy.’
The Big Slamm now joins a number of other proposed boulders proposed at Font 9A; in total there are now a dozen world-wide albeit only a handful of these have currently been repeated and confirmed at the grade. Five have been FA’d in the last year which shows the explosion of climbers bouldering at the top level.