4. FREE SOLO is a film, which won the Best Documentary (纪录片) of Oscar in 2019. In fact, Free Soloing is an extreme sport which is a rock climbing without a rope or any safety protection. Imagine an Olympic gold medal level athletic achievement, if you don't get that gold medal, you are going to die. This is pretty much what free soloing is like. You have to do it perfectly, without any mistakes. Quite a few climbers fell and died in the mountains during the free soloing because it's full of super great risk.
The film shows us that a rock climber called Alex Honnold performs a free solo climbing EI Capitan. Alex was born on August 17, 1985, in America. He began to learn how to free solo at the age of 19. Later he made free soloing a big part of his life.
EI Capitan is a 3, 200﹣foot﹣high (over 900 metres high) sheer granite (陡峭的花岗岩) in Yosemite National Park, in California. Nobody succeeded in free soloing it but Alex wanted to be the first one. He spent years getting ready for it. He says that during free soloing the big challenge is controlling his mind especially the fear of death. He also thinks that a climber has to give something 100% focus (专注) because his life depends on it, or he will lose his life.
Finally Alex had the best day of his life. On June 3, 2017, Alex became the first and only person to free solo EI Capitan. It took him 3 hours and fifty-six minutes to stand on the top of EI Capitan.
Alex is not only a wonderful a free solo climber but also has set up Honnold Foundation. It supports projects toward a clean, healthy, efficient and globally future.