2018 was a banner year for hard sport climbing. The Year saw 51 new 9a+ or harder ascents, of which 22 were FAs. Ondra continued to dominate — in addition to putting up 8 of those 21 routes, he snagged the first ever 5.15 flash. Six routes more new routes than last year and nine new routes are more than in the year 2016. A new difficulty as in the last year with the route of „Silence“ (9c) by Adam Ondra wasn’t this year. There are with Alex Megos a new first ascent a ‚9b+‘-route. The difficulty has been confirmed this year by Stefano Ghisolfi. With Alex Megos and Stefano Ghisolfi, there are now a total of 4 climbers, alongside Adam Ondra and Chris Sharma, which could climb this difficulty. The difficulty of „9b“ has been proposed for four routes. The two routes by Adam Ondra, there should be no discussion. The route „La Barrière“ in the Jansegg by Pirmin Bertle, however, already, because so far none of its routes for which he suggested „9b“ were confirmed in this difficulty. The route by Sachi Amma to be also curious, since it was his first route in this grade. From the now 125 routes in the grade 9a + and harder, are 38 or 39 routes *) by Adam Ondra. This dominance was also this year, even if he could tap into the year not the hardest route this year. In total Chris Sharma manages 16 and Alex Megos manages 8 new routes in the grade 9a + and harder . The performance of Jakob Schubert is still worth mentioning. He managed a repetition of the Chris Sharma route ‚El Bon Combat‘ (9B/+), which he however on 9a+! downgraded from him. *)

The first ascent of „Chilam Balam“ by Bernabé Fernández (who classified the route at that time with 9b+ is considered to be at least strongly doubtful). Adam Ondra has the second or first ascent of the route.