Alexander Megos is a German rock climber. He was the first climber to on-sight a route graded. He has climbed multiple notable hard routes and boulder problems, including one route, two routes, and some boulder problems with a confirmed rating. Megos has won many international competitions.
Climbing career
Megos started climbing at the age of six. With his father, he climbed multi-pitch routes up to 300 m at the age of ten. From the year 2006 on, Megos trained in the national base "Franconia" of the climbing association Bavaria and later at the Federal Base sports climbing in Erlangen, Nuremberg. There he was looked after by Patrick Matros and Ludwig Korb, who both still train and coach Megos today. In 2007 Megos got his first, in 2009 he climbed his first with "Drive by shooting" and in 2011 his first with "San Ku Kai". Since 2006, Alexander Megos actively participates in climbing competitions. He won two European Championship titles and a Vice World Champion title in 2011. In 2009 he won every single competition in the EYC series. In 2017 he was European runner-up in bouldering and won on July 21, 2018 his first lead World Cup in Briançon. After graduation in 2012, he focused on rock climbing. On March 24, 2013, he succeeded on the route Estado Critico in the Spanishclimbing areaSiurana which was the world's first route of difficulty of 9a that was on-sighted. In August 2013, Megos climbed with R.E.D. 9a the hardest route of the Australian continent and the hardest boulder problem Australian continent Wheelchair. Due to the unusual length for a boulder he assessed the difficulty of Wheelchair not on the usual boulder scale, but on the French scale for a climbing route with. Alexander Megos is known for extremely fast repetitions of hard rock climbing routes. From mid-April to mid-June of 2014, he did 9 routes of which the grades ranged from to in his home climbing area, the Franconian Switzerland, including "Modified", one of the hardest routes in the Franconian Switzerland. He also managed a redpoint attempt of the famous "Action Directe", just within two hours which is a record time. In addition, he secured the only one-day tour of the top route "Biography / Realization" in Ceüse, France. In June 2014, Alexander Megos together with Roger Schäli, did the first ascent of the 20-pitch route "FLY" in Staldeflue, which is one of the hardest big-wall climbing routes in the world. On October 1, 2015, he climbed the route "Supernova" in Franconian Switzerland and by doing so he probably established the first route in grade 11+ in German-speaking countries. With the ascent of the route "First Round First Minute" in December 2015 he successfully upgrades his first climbing line in the grade. On May 9, 2018, he secured the first ascent of the route "Perfecto Mundo" in Margalef, a line drilled by Chris Sharma and designed for a long time. Megos and Sharma had tried it together several times in the days before his visit and rated it with. In 2017, he won the silver medal in both the Bouldering European Championships, in Munich and the IFSC Lead World Cup in Kranj, Slovenia, also in 2018 he won bronze at the IFSC Lead World Cup in Chamonix, and one week later won Gold in the Briancon World Cup. Later in the year he won bronze in the Lead World Championships. He followed this up with a silver in the 2019 Lead World Championships. Moreover, by reaching the finals of the combined event of the World Championships, he secured a qualification spot for Tokyo's 2020 Summer Olympics. Megos also has a background in the La Sportiva Legends competitions, where he has competed multiple times and placed 2nd and 3rd. In 2018 he won first place. He currently holds the high point of Black Diamond's The Project, which is widely considered one of the world's hardest indoor routes. In May 2020, Megos established with "Upgrade U" 8C the hardest boulderproblem of his home climbing area, the Frankenjura. He's currently working on a project named "Bibliographie" in Ceüse which will possibly even harder than Perfecto Mundo.
