Oriane Bertone Climbs V15 / 8C At Only 15 Years Old – Video

Oriane Bertone has become the fourth woman to climb V15 / 8C. At only 15 years old she has taken down “Satan I Helvete low start” in Fontainebleau.

She announced it on Instagram and you can see the video of her send from the 25th of May below. The boulder is in the Coquibus Longs Vaux of Font.

The route is her own variation of “Satan I Helvete”. It was originally put up by Dave Graham who graded it as 8B+, though after a few repeats it was given hard 8B as a consensus. At some point in 2013 the start holds broke off and Alban Levier tried it again. He gave it an 8C at that point but again consensus from other climbers downgraded it – this time to a hard 8B+.

Read our full article – Who Is Oriane Bertone?

Oriane had sent the 8B+ route and has now added a different set of beta with a lower sit start which she grades at 8C. Saying on her 8a.nu log, “The line was called 8C for stand start (Alban Levier in 2016), but I think that with my beta it’s 8C from the low start now.”

Massive congratulations to Oriane on the accomplishment and her hard work during lockdown!

According to the video, boulderers like “Jeremy Bonder, Charles Albert, Ludo Lefevre among others” have also tried the new beta on the route – and the grade seemed logical. Charles Albert has now also sent the boulder with Oriane’s beta and “hesitated to grade it”.

Oriane is a prolific boulderer, sport climber, and indoor champion from the island “La Réunion”. She competes on the world level for France. Just last year she won Gold in Lead and Bouldering at the IFSC Youth World Championships in her age group.

She also sent a V14 / 8B+ boulder when she was 12. Her brother Max Bertone climbed (and downgraded) an 8c/8c+ sport route at only 12. She had been in lockdown around the Font area after traveling to France to compete, and after 60 days inside started climbing 8A’s just a few weeks ago.

Oriane Bertone Becomes Fourth Female V15 Climber

Even though Oriane is only 15 years of age she still isn’t the youngest person to climb V15 / 8C. That would be Mishka Ishi at only 13 climbing “Byaku-dou” in Mount Hiei, Japan last March. The previous youngest title was held by Ashima Shiraishi who climbed “Horizon”, also at Mount Hiei, back in 2015 when she was 14. Ashima was the first woman to climb V15 and has gone on to climb another. Kaddi Lehman was the second female to have climbed V15 with “Kryptos” in 2018.