You'll be in deep water ! The guys and gals in this season's HardMoves super final will be facing off against each other at the Historische Schwimmoper in Wuppertal, a futuristic indoor swimming centre, where we'll be building the climbing arena of your (wet) dreams. This time you won't just crimp, swing and crush it in the best HardMoves fashion - you'll be doing it with 1,200 raw throats "venga!"ing you on and with 7m of thin air and a huge, 1.6mio. liter crashpad below you. Make sure water isn't your personal kryptonite!

If you started climbing in the early eighties, there were only a couple heros to choose from and among those outstanding climbers, Patrick Edlinger was not only the most glamerous, he was also the one "who had it all". Some of the most inspiring imagery of that time showed Patrick Edlinger soloing barefoot in the Verdon and Buoux or repeating everything in the western US in unheard-of good style. He single-handingly developed the Verdon and Ceüse (!!!) and, just when everybody thought he was just a poser (some of his film were rather "french" ;-) - he won all the important competitions! Among them was Munich 1989, the pic below shows him on the final route.

In 2006 he moved to La Palud to be close to his beloved Verdon Gorge where I shot the pic of Patrick and his kid in 2005. He became only 52 and will be always remembered for one of the characters who shaped modern climbing forever!

Somebody already uploaded my video comparision of Patrick Edlinger and Wolfgang Güllich in Munich 1989 in bad quality (after the break) but I will re-upload it in better quality as well as other footage we have of Patrick...