18 Aug Biographie and the importance of the names

 

In France, and generally in Europe, are those who bolt the routes to give the name, so it was for Biographie in Ceuse in the early 90s, by the unforgettable  Jean-Christophe Lafaille.
 
In 1996 another famous French, Arnaud Petit, freed the first part (8c +) in this 40 meters pitch and put an anchor  at the end of this part. The second part, the missing to get to the original anchor, remains unsolved and graded 8b + with a boulder of 7C in the middle.
 
Chris Sharma made about 30 attempts between 1996 and 1997 and 2000, but fails to the boulder step of  7C. In July 2001, Sharma avoided to partecipate to the Bouldering World Cup held in Gap to engage himself  in Biographie. He works on it  for three consecutive days and carried out the FFA of the route, then changing the name to Realization.
 
In U.S. it is customary that the name is given by the first free ascender. In 2004, the climber from  Gap Sylvain Millet did  the first repeat of the route that for French climbers is Biographie and not Realization, although eventually the same thing.
Next up comes the repeat by the Basque Patxi Usobiaga grading it about 9a + and in  July 2007 by Dave Graham. Few days ago the performance of 15 years old Enzo Oddo from Nice.
 
Perhaps Jean-Christophe Lafaille would be justly proud., about the desire and appreciation of his work on the stone of Ceuse

Kairn published the toughts of  Chris Sharma about  the controversy of the name: 

I named the route "Realization" because the first part "Biographie" ended in the middle and I wanted to differentiate the two parts. Then there was some frustration from the French that I changed the name. So upon speaking with some French friends, I understood the history of the line and the tradition in France that the bolter names it, and I told them "that’s fine with me to call it Biographie".
Most of the time now like in slideshows etc, I actually call the route Biographie. I guess the whole thing was a bit confusing due to the middle anchor and not wanting to discredit the first pitch, or have the name be exactly the same as the first part.
For me personally, people can call it whatever they want. Naming things is just for fun. The perfection of the route speaks for itself. That piece of rock was there long long before us, so to get worked up about naming it is kinda ridiculous.
Source: Kairn
Video: Sylvain Millet on Biographie realization by Fred Ripert; Patxi Usobiaga on Biographie filmed by Iñaki Marco and Miguel Catita