Angelino Zeller - The Sarre Project

Angelino Zeller is a three-time world champion in climbing. And that, although he has been in a wheelchair since a paragliding accident.

TUESDAY OCTOBER 10, 2023

Angelino Zeller is a three-time world champion in climbing. And that, although he has been in a wheelchair since a paragliding accident. He is paralyzed from the waist down and cannot use his legs when climbing.

Angelino has always been very sporty and has also worked professionally as an industrial climber. However, when he returned to indoor climbing during rehab after his accident, a spark ignited. He began to train regularly and to master climbing without using his legs. When climbing, he works solely with his upper body strength to gain momentum to perform the next one-arm pull-up through targeted swinging. A tour de force.

After a short time, Angelino was so good that he started competing, and he soon won regularly. This is because the one hand he has an incredible motivation to train, and on the other hand because he also has the necessary ease and composure to perform under pressure.

That by itself is a huge success story, but Angelino is not just a competitive athlete. He is a nature loving person and also cares about the overall experience of his sport. That's why he keeps trying routes on real rock.

Due to his physical impairment, the number of routes he is able to climb is limited – they need to be accessible and must be overhanging enough so that he can easily shimmy from handle to handle. It is precisely the latter circumstance that always ensures a high difficulty, because climbing an overhang with more than 90 degrees on small crimps and pockets without legs quickly leads you into the terrain of extreme sport climbing.

The Sarree2000 route in the Aosta Valley is a good example. Italian professional climber Stefano Ghisolfi climbed this 8a+ route back in 2015 without using his feet. Simply to prove that it can be done. When Angelino sees the video about it years later, he knows he has to try it.

However, during his first attempts in the Aosta Valley, he realizes that his competition training only gives him a limited advantage in rock climbing. After a few sessions, however, he is finally able to resolve the difficult sequences on small crimps.

Of course, this motivates him to continue preparing for this challenge with special training. It doesn't matter not to know if a route of this difficulty is even possible for someone in a wheelchair. Simply because it's never been done before.

For Angelino, that's exactly what he loves about rock climbing – pushing the limits of what's possible on difficult routes.