“No rope climbing is totally mental. During the ascent I have to be totally focused on climbing, I can’t divert my attention in the slightest. That’s why I don’t feel afraid, I don’t think about falling. If I climb without a rope it is because I am 100% sure that I am not going to fall, I am confident in myself”.
That point. A total harmony between body and mind. Technical excellence, absolute determination. at that point is Jorge Diaz-Rullo, the best Spanish climber of the moment. He is one of only six men in the world to have managed to complete a grade 9b+ route, an almost impossible wall. He is one of the few who dares to carry out solo ascents, that is, without any protection, natural. And despite this he is hardly known outside the world. At 24 years old, he is far from the recognition that the Czech receives Adam Ondramuch more of the fame of the American Alex Honnoldstar of the Oscar-winning documentary Free Solo.
Because yes, the life of Díaz-Rullo is a nomadic life. From Vallecas, in Madrid, since he was a teenager he has combined weeks at his parents’ house with months at the foot of the mountains, climbing, climbing and, later, climbing. «When I have a project that motivates me, I go for an indefinite period of time to live in the van. The last time I was in Catalonia for almost half a year. The truth is that I love living in the van, it’s like having your house on wheels. Now I have a large, camperized, a real luxury. Before I was living in a small Citroen Berlingo and I only had a bed, with some wood that I had fixed. The difference is quite noticeable, ”acknowledges the athlete, with strange beginnings.
Climbing, like so many minority sports, is usually hereditary, a hobby that is passed from father to son, but this is not the case in his case. «In Vallecas, near where I live, there is a small ceiling light and when I was 12 years old my brother convinced me to try it. I didn’t like it very much and I was pretty bad at it; he preferred to play soccer. But over time climbing attracted me, it began to attract my attention and in the end I ended up totally immersed”, recalls Díaz-Rullo, something of a child prodigy. Because, with no one to take him to the mountain, he spent years without testing the rock, but as soon as he put his hands…
In 2017, at the age of 18, he performed in Rodellar, Huesca, his first 9a and his first 9a+; in 2019 in Villanueva del Rosario, in Malaga, his first 9b, following in the footsteps of Ondra, Jakob Schubert, Angela Eiter o Jonathan Siegrist; and from there to the first Spanish 9b+ in history.