Chris Sharma

Sharma carried the mantle of "world's strongest sport climber" from Wolfgang Güllich (who held it for almost a decade from the early 1980s), and passed it to Adam Ondra (who held it from 2012).

Chris Omprakash Sharma (born 23 April, 1981) is an American rock climber who is considered one of the greatest and most influential climbers in the history of the sport.

At age 14, he won the adult 1996 US Open Bouldering Nationals, and a year later aged 15, he freed Boone Speed's project Necessary Evil in the Virgin River Gorge, the hardest sport climb in North America at the time.

The following year, Sharma won silver at the biennial UIAA World Championships at Paris, and gold at the Kranj leg of the UIAA World Cup, both for lead climbing.

Still 16, he suffered a serious knee injury that sidelined him for over a year.

Aged 18, Sharma moved to Bishop, California, and began a US bouldering revolution with his 1999 film Rampage, and in February 2000, completed the first ascent of The Mandala, a world-famous boulder problem.

He dominated sport climbing for the decade after his 2001 ascent of Realization/Biographie, the world's first-ever redpoint of a consensus graded route, and ushered in what was called a "technical evolution" in the sport.

On 18 July 2001, aged 19, Sharma completed the extension of the route Biographie in Ceüse in France, and named it Realization; the route was the first consensus in the world, and has since become an important route in the history of sport climbing, with Climbing magazine noting that "technical rock climbing jumped in its evolution".

It was the first confirmed increase in grades since Wolfgang Gullich's ascent of Action Directe, a decade earlier.

Sharma's ascent of the route was captured in Josh Lowell's 2002 film, Dosage Volume 1.

Days later, Sharma won the Munich leg of the IFSC World Cup in bouldering, only to be disqualified on testing positive for marijuana.

After Realization, Sharma considered quitting climbing and went on Buddhist pilgrimages.

A 2003 trip to Mallorca, Spain to meet Miquel Riera, a pioneer of deep-water soloing, led him to "fall in love with climbing all over again".

Sharma largely abandoned competitions, to focus on "King Lines", a term he adopted for iconic routes that motivated him.

In 2004, Sharma solved the boulder problem Practice of the Wild, and in 2005 solved the dramatic roof of Witness the Fitness , followed by redpointing Dreamcatcher , regarded as one of North America's most iconic sport climbs.

Sharma is also known for free soloing the world's first-ever deep-water solo route, Es Pontàs in 2006.

In 2006, he made an early repeat of La Rambla, and in 2006, after 50 attempts, stuck the crux dyno of Es Pontàs in Mallorca, the world's first-ever DWS route.

Sharma became one of the most commercially successful climbers in his sport, and was noted for his "King Lines" – iconic routes that inspired him to spend the months and even years needed to climb them – some of which feature in the award-winning 2007 climbing film, King Lines.

Chris Omprakash Sharma was born and raised in Santa Cruz, California, the only child of Gita Jahn and Bob Sharma.

His parents were devotees of the yogi Baba Hari Dass, and adopted the surname Sharma when they got married.

He went to Mount Madonna, and attended Soquel High School for a year.

Sharma started rock climbing when he was 12 at the Pacific Edge Climbing Gym, and he described himself as "one of the first climbing-gym-generation kids".

From the outset, Sharma was considered prodigy in the climbing world.

Some of Sharma's climbs from this era are in the iconic and award-winning 2007 climbing film, King Lines.

In 2007, Sharma moved to Lleida, a town near the Spanish Pyrenees, in Catalonia, Spain, and over the next five years, created an unprecedented series of new to sport climbs, predominantly in Catalonian limestone crags (namely Oliana, Siurana, Santa Linya and Margalef), starting with the classic of Papichulo in May 2008.

In 2008, Sharma redpointed the world's first-ever consensus route with Jumbo Love, and in 2013, became only the second-ever person to climb a route with La Dura Dura.

In September 2008, Sharma made a trip back to the United States and climbed the world's first-ever consensus route when he freed Randy Leavitt's 250 ft bolted route, Jumbo Love in Clark Mountain in California.

Sharma said that after climbing Jumbo Love, he needed to change his approach.

His previous breakthroughs had been on routes established and bolted by other climbers who had given up on them, and now he needed to find his own limit saying: "I wanted to push myself to the next level. Where is that? I had to discover it. That was a big process in itself. So I bolted all these routes [in Spain]. And a lot of them ended up being that next level".

The period saw Sharma bolt and free numerous new extreme -graded "King Lines", including Golpe de Estado (climb) (2008), Neanderthal (2009), and First Round First Minute (2011), each a major project in itself and since regarded as important classics, with Sharma saying "That's the thing about being on the cutting edge. You have to invent it".

In 2011, Sharma invited the then 19-year-old climbing prodigy Adam Ondra, to try an Oliana route he had bolted in 2009 called La Dura Dura, which Sharma himself had given up on saying "I never saw myself being able to climb it.", and "I figured it would be for the next generation".

Their collaboration was documented in Reel Rock 7 (2012), and La Dura Complete (2013).

For the next year, the two climbers worked the route in a collaborative process that saw Ondra make the first ascent in February 2013, and Sharma make the first repeat in March 2013.

National Geographic called their collaboration a defining moment in the sport of rock climbing, when the title of "world's best climber" had begun to pass from one generation to the next.

Both Ondra and Sharma declared the collaboration to be a very positive experience with Sharma saying post his March ascent: "It was a healthy process for both of us, we fed off each other's motivation and through him, I think I became a better climber myself".

In 2015, he freed El Bon Combat, considered at the time to be close to, and in 2016 he soloed Alesha, the world's first DWS route.

One of Sharma's unfinished projects was a potential route in Oliana beside La Dura Dura called Le Blond, named in memory of Patrick Edlinger; it remains unfinished.

In March 2023, aged 41, Sharma made the first redpoint of Sleeping Lion, a route beside La Rambla in Spain, which he described as the hardest thing he had done in over eight years.

At the same time in 2023, noting that neighboring Golpe de Estado has never had a third ascent, Sharma wondered if it was a really graded route, which would have made it the world's first-ever at that grade.

At, La Dura Dura would hold the rank of "world's hardest climb" until Ondra climbed Silence at in 2017, and while Sharma would put up several more "King Lines" over the next 5 years, it marked the high-point in terms of his hardest route.