Adam Ondra

I felt the strongest impulse to climb when I entered my first competitions.

What really motivates me to climb harder and harder is not necessarily that I want to push my limits or show who's best, but climbing harder and harder routes makes it more fun.

The harder routes you climb, the more interesting the climbing gets and the more crazy moves you are forced to figure out.

There are way more powerful climbers compared to me but I think I can really take advantage of all my power due to my technique.

I was born into a climbing family.

What I like about climbing that it's so broad. For certain periods I can focus on sport climbing and then I can shift my focus more on the bouldering or I can shift my focus on climbing in the mountains.

I think in general the American scene is much more focused on bouldering, where in Europe they're more focused on sport climbing.

I came to Flatanger with a plan in my mind to bolt a really, really hard thing that would be beautiful and keep me motivated to try it for a long time, in some underdeveloped area.

I think climbing deserves to be an Olympic sport, as it is one of the few natural movements - like swimming or running, things that people have been doing for a thousand years.

Climbing in the Olympics would be my dream, but I'm not so optimistic that it will make it in 2020.

I started climbing thanks to my parents, who have been going with me on the rocks since I was a baby.

Climbing is great, and I don't think I'll ever tire of it, because there are so many different disciplines.

I shriek when I am climbing at my absolute limit, but never shriek in the warm-up or when trying the moves. No matter how terrible it might sound, it helps me.

I do not climb really dangerous stuff.

I think speed climbing is kind of an artificial discipline. Climbers compete on the same holds and train on the same holds, which doesn't have much in common with the climbing philosophy in my opinion.

Even though Czech food is traditionally a bit heavy, especially for a climber, I can't resist some dishes: sveckova, for example, is beef in a creamy sauce with celery and dumplings. It's probably fortunate that I don't know how to cook it myself.

Czech people are quite hard to get to know, in my opinion.

I have always wanted to compete in the Olympic Games.

For the Olympics, I'm mostly training in the gym, so I'm running laps on the standard speed wall.

Bouldering on real rock, which I'm more used to climbing on, is a lot more static and requires mostly finger power, whereas competition-style boulder problems are about coordination.

For meat, I eat mostly high-quality fish and chicken.

I've never had problems about passionate motivation to just keep climbing and keep training and pushing.

My diet is mostly composed of whole-grain cereals, legumes, beans, lentils. Lots of cooked, baked, or steamed vegetables. Lots of spices like curcumin or cumin that help aid digestion. Some superfoods.

I remember when I started climbing more seriously. That was when I was six years old.

Climbing in a beautiful location, the goal is not to power my way up but to become for that moment a part of the landscape, part of the rock.