Gio Placci has done the second repeat of Adam Ondra's Bombardino (9a+) in Arco. "In 4 days, maybe 9a/+ but almost impossible to grade. The beta for me and Stefano (Ghisolfi) is completely different from Adam’s one, it’s way easy 😅 . The route is 8b+ then really good rest and then a boulder with a really hard first move from a bad small crimp to a small two finger pocket."

How can you explain having done your first three 9a+' in just six weeks?
I think I’m growing a lot as a rock climber. I’m more focused on the small details and this help a lot. Anyway, I’m not actually climbing a lot outside (one day per week) I’m training for my trip to Spain.

What is the ambition for 2023, and what about the Olympics?
My goal for next year is the lead world cup and my dream is to make a final! Also, I want to try Erebor (9b) after the comp season. For the Olympic games, I think my level in boulder is too low to be qualified, so my plans are focused on 2028’s games

How often do you train and how do you train?
I train almost every day. Sometimes I rest to grow my skin. I do fingerboard, campus board, and physical preparation. I climb 5 days per week either in Arco or in Milano. I love training, I’m always the one who finishes the session the last 😅.

Cathy Wagner has done Inter pas tactique (8a) (on her 2nd go and calling it 7c+), La de enmedio de los Chichos (8a) and El arte de la alegria (8a+) (calling it 8a). In total, the 57-year-old has logged 866 routes 8a to 8b and without all her personal grading, she would be close to 900, which most likely is a record for female climbing.

Drew Ruana reports on Insta that he has done the FA of Bookkeeping 8C+ in the Nomad cave. It is a 30 move roof link-up of an 8A, into an 8B+, into an 8A+. In the video description Drew says that it can be made a solid 9A with another finish, and by doing an alternative 8B+ start. (c) Nick Bradley

In 2019, he was #8 in the World Championships. After he failed to make it to the Olympics, the 23-year-old and full-time chemical engineering university student, has evolved to be one of the best boulderers in the world. In total, he has done close to 90 boulders 8B+ and harder including five 8C+. Here is an 8a interview from last year.

Loic Zehani has done the third repeat of Widowmaker (9a) in Margalef, in just two tries. Vincent Palau bolted the five-star route and then Ramon Julian did the FA in 2015. "Another magnificent route from Margalef (purgatory). A fast approach and then a big overhang with pockets but not only. Some dynamics moves. Winter conditions this morning before the rain (1° and cloudy). Without forgetting the 10 meters between the last point and the belay it's not hard but without chalk, it was really scary. 1 try yesterday and 1 today." (c) Emile Pino

Two weeks ago we reported that Bronwyn Hodgins had done the second female ascent of Necronomicon (8b) in The White Rim. The FFA was done by Mary Eden in October and here are her comments. (c) Spencer Mckay

"The challenging roof crack has a 12 ft crux of WC friend .75s surrounded by fists, baggy hands, hands, and thin hand sizes. Necronomicon’s slash grade of 8b/8b+ comes from whether or not the climber can thin-hand or hand jam the crux section of .75s. If the climber can get thin hands or hand jams in the .75 section, then the grade is 8b. If they have thick palms and have to ring lock, paddle hand, or finger bar the crux, the grade is 8b+.

The crux for me was the paddle hands and fat ring locks. I unfortunately have thick palms and cannot thin hand jam cracks protected with .75 cams. In the crux I used a sequence of a tight paddle hand(your hand stops at or before the knuckles on your hand and you ‘jam’ by lodging the knuckle as deep as possible while finger barring and hoping for the best) at my chest and a fat ring lock(a ring lock in which I tuck my thumb under the base of my index finger) above my head while keeping my toes (in the thinnest slippers I could find) jammed close to my hips in order to keep my body tension high and not slip out of the very thin offset .75 crux. The red point crux was getting into and leaving an awkward pod that comes immediately after the crux section of greens. Once you successfully navigate the pod with a double knee bar that allows you to go hands free, it's important to not allow the exit of the pod to push you off of the route, and continue the last 20 ft of mildly chossy roof crack climbing to the other side.

In 2020 I scouted the route, had two sessions on it, and made plans to return in the future. Unfortunately, I was unable to return to the route fully until October 2022. In 2021 I attempted a session with Ben Rueck in August, however, the extreme heat of 118 degrees fahrenheit shut all attempts down even though the route is perma shady. This fall I worked the route for 3 days, took 1 rest day, and then another 3 days until I secured the pink point. Then due to bruised palms, aching knees, and sore calves I took two rest days. The first day back and first burn I got the red point.

I climbed Necronomicon a bit differently than the ways it had been freed before. I opted to climb Necronomicon at an earlier start than the standard, a positive hold with a heel hook at the end of a dirty offwidth squeeze crawl. I chose to do the dirty offwidth crawl 10 ft further back in the cave because it felt personally lower energy to enter the roof earlier than precariously balancing on a rock stack.

I cannot put into words how beautiful, remote, and rewarding it is to climb down in the White Rim. The first time I saw the 30 meter roof crack, Necronomicon, there was a herd of bighorn sheep standing around the base, the sun lit up the sky for a cotton candy sunset, and the hardest looking crack I’d ever thought about climbing loomed above. Climbing there has fully captured my imagination and curiosity. Climbing this kind of crazy stuff on adventures like this is honestly why I love rock climbing so freaking much. "

Noah Wheeler has done Paint it Black (8C) in RMNP (CO). "Surprised myself with a send of this one after 5 days off from the flu. One of the most technical (that is to say, not strength or finger reliant) climbs I’ve had the privilege of trying. 3 seshs w the first one including some of the worst blind beta yours truly has ever conceived of."

Can you tell us more about the ascent?
I visited the boulder for the first time briefly in October and came back a week ago after having rehabbed my fingers a bit more. I worked out the moves mostly last sesh and had decent links by then. In the week leading to the send session I got the flu and unfortunately had to take the entire week off for rest. I came to the boulder this weekend with a residual cough but managed to send and in fact felt pretty good during the entire sesh.

What is next and what about 2023?
Haha, I’m going to Vegas over thanksgiving so I’ll pull in but I only have a week. For next summer I want to get on Insomniac (8C+) but aside from that I am in school full time so I mostly just go where the psyche takes me given I have the space. Usually, that means smaller-term projects in Colorado.

Lucien Martinez has removed all but two sika holds from Eric Siguier's unrepeated Chicken deluxe (9a+), from 2002, creating a hard 9a+, in Saint-Antonin. Previously the editor-in-chief of the French Magazine Grimper has done ten 9a's and one 9a+. Fanatic Climbing has the full story. (c) Arthur Delicque

"For me, the story started when I got it into my head to repeat this 8c+ which was one of the very last routes I hadn’t ticked at Supermanjoc. I broke two sika holds during my first go, just by pulling on them, and that’s when I and Fabrice (Landry) started thinking that it might be possible without sika. With the agreement of Éric Siguier, we then removed fifteen sika holds (perhaps 17) with a hammer (they came down very easily). There are two that we decided to keep despite everything because, unlike the others, the sika was actually reinforcing a natural hold, so breaking the sika would have meant also breaking the rock itself. For the first of the two holds, it would have made no difference to remove it. For the second, we are not 100% sure that the route would have been possible without. We hesitated a lot and finally told ourselves that we were going to play it smart and leave them on. So no, we can’t say that the route is completely natural (there are two sika holds left) but I don’t think we could have called it natural either if we had removed them too."