Those who have seen him climb say his climbing future is very bright. We are talking about Alexander Megos, the 17-year old athlete from Germany, who also speaks English, French and…Greek: Alexander is of Greek descent, and of course we Greeks are very proud. Megos consistently ranks at the top of the European and World Youth Championships. The first week of November found him climbing in Kalymnos for the second time. Unfortunately we were not there to see him, but ‘local’Simon Montmory followed Alexander’s climbing activity closely and kindly reported back to us. It will be interesting to follow his course over the next few years; from the looks of it, the only way is up!

Here’s what Alexander Megos climbed his second time on Kalymnos:

Sector Jurassic Park
Rendez with Platon 8a+/b: onsight
Labyrinth 8b: 2nd go (no chalk on the route+ broken holds)

Sector Odyssey
Immediately after two tries on Inshallah (15m 8c+) at nearby sector North Cape, where he fell at the last move, he went on to Odyssey to do…
Gaia 8b: onsight
Nadir 8b+: 2nd go (Alex suggests 8b)
Lucky Luca extension 8c: 2nd go

Sector Glaros
Glaros 8b: onsight (A ‘walk’…he suggests 8a+)
Barabuk 8b+: onsight (no chalk in the route, he agrees with 8b + and repeated the route once for pictures)
StormPU 8a+: onsight (boulder problem, he thinks it’s 8a; again, he repeated it once for pictures).

There are plenty more fantastic hard routes for Alex Megos to climb on his third visit to Kalymnos (hopefully soon). Simon Montmory is already a huge fan. He says ‘I’m sure (Alexander) could do even better with more time for climbing. He never works projects for long periods, so what would happen if he did?’