Ascent to a new dimension

Because he'd never before lined up for a bouldering competition, 15-year-old David Lama was reluctant to take part in the climbing world cup in Hall (Austria). After some persuasion – and perhaps with the goal of qualifying for the European championship – he did go in the end, and won it. This is truly typical of David Lama.

It is said that great talents and other climbers part ways at level 8a. A relatively talented climber can reach 8a with a lot of commitment and even more training, and even then only in their best years. In 2003, at age 12, David Lama’s best years were undoubtedly still ahead of him, but that did not stop him from climbing an 8b+ route, the youngest climber to achieve this in the history of the sport. When he was 15 years old, David was Junior World Champion and twice winner of the European Youth Cup. In April, at 15 years and barely 9 months, David was the youngest competitor ever to take part in the competitive climbing World Cup, which took place in Puurs (Belgium), finishing in second place behind World Cup winner Flavio Crespi (ITA) and ahead of Tomas Mrazék (CZE).
But rather than settle for second best, David went one better at only his second attempt to make the top step of the podium at the World Cup in Dresden (GER). And just to make sure, he took the championship for a third time at the next World Cup event at home in Tyrol, which was a remarkable achievement in itself: the contest in the town of Hall was part of the Boulder World Cup, a discipline in which David was competing for the very first time. In which, as we already know, he didn’t even want to participate.
The bouldering event at the European Championships in Russia was canceled for safety reasons, but that didn’t prevent David from showing his ability in another discipline: after easily getting through the qualifying round, the 15-year-old won the “LEAD” event and claimed his first European Championship title.

Genes from the Himalayas

David Lama is considered the biggest talent on the international climbing scene. Jürgen Reis, his colleague in the Austrian national climbing team, shows no sign of envy when he says: “You could say that he climbs in a different dimension – and he has that special something in his genes.” His genetic make-up comes partly from the Alps and partly from the Himalayas: his mother Claudia is Austrian, his father Rinzi is from Nepal and the family lives in Tyrol. David goes to a sports school there, which leaves him enough time to work on his climbing technique, six times a week. “Dynamic, but safe” is how David describes his climbing style.
And still a little unorthodox: because he also climbs routes that are a size too big for his reach at 6’3”, David often has to jump to the next hold. His coach Reinhold Schere comments: “Old hands don’t climb as aggressively, as cheekily as that. There's a kind of revolution in the making here.”

Generation L

David’s ascent to the summit of climbing is attracting attention. At the very least since his first 8b+ route at the age of 12 (in the meantime he has climbed an 8c+ route, on a scale that ends at 9a), just about every Alpine magazine has featured David; the documentary film “Generation L – David Lama” was made about him when he was 13. He is actually quite laid-back about the hype surrounding him: “I would like to become a professional climber, measure myself against others, travel and climb as much as possible on the rock face,” he says. And: “That’s all for now.”