Loic Zehani has done his 9a #20, UFO faire XXL in Calanques. "It is a connection between "UFO" 8c (one of the first 8c in France, bolted by Fred Roulhing) and "XXL" 8c +. You have to do all the hard part of "UFO" and then the bouldery crux of "XXL" with a little rest in between. It took me 5 days. I fell 3 times on the last hard movement. It's a very physical route. I think it's a 9a especially since the bouldery section is harder following the breakage of a little part of a hold. You can watch a try on my Instagram where I fall in the last movement."

Solveig Korherr has done her seventh 8c in 2020, Blue Line in Geyik bayiri. (c) Jon Shen "Two days. First Female Ascent. Ceusienne Berlin style rock after 20 meters of easier tufa approach. Happy that I was able to cram two fingers into some of the tiny pockets. Quite atypical of Geyikbayiri."

So how many climbers are around? What about Covid-19 restrictions and how long will you stay?
Turkey has been great so far! It’s getting very busy now especially with the holidays starting, so there are quite a few climbers around. It’s hard to tell because there a lot of different campgrounds and I’m in a smaller one but probably around 100 climbers. Tourist can do everything, there are no restrictions for us. I will probably stay here till mid of January.

Aidan Roberts made his breakthrough at the world scene at the end of this summer. During six weeks, he made six FA's 8B+ to Superpower 8C+. Lattice Training got his breakthrough on film and Tom Randell gives us more insight.

"Aidan is extremely intelligent/academic but at the same time climbing super hard and also crazy humble about it all... I'm going to have to shout about it for him 😂. He's studying at top UK university in a maths degree and so has to balance this with climbing performance. A kid with many things on his plate!

This film follows Aidan repeating multiple 8Bs to then establishing first ascents all the way up to 8C and 8C+ with Superpowers and Outliers. Whilst you all know these grades have been climbed before elsewhere, you may not know the context of Aidan and the Lakeland grading - he's not soft and neither are the grades! One of his FAs from Colorado established previously (Railway, 8C) has been tried by some of the world's best boulderers and yet has only had a single repeat by Matt Fultz..."

Alex Garriga, who has done two 9a+' in 2020, has done the FA of Cordia Maleficarum 9a in Cuenca. "You have to do the hard part if Corazón cofrade, about 8c. Then there are twelve moves independent traverse and for finish the final of Malleus Maleficarum, a project." After he did the 8c, he did the FA after some 20 tries.

Alex Megos reports on Insta that he has done Dreamtime 8C (B+) in Cresciano after two days of trying. In total, the German has done 26 boulders 8A to 8C as well as well as ten routes 8c+/9a to 9c, and he has been appointed 8a Climber of 2020. (c) Alise Zvigule

Jakob Schubert is one of the contenders being the 8a climber of 2020. Besides flashing The Never Ending Story 8B+, he did 17 boulders 8B as harder as well as ten 9a's. (c) Michael Piccolruaz

Could you please summarize your climbing year 2020?"
Well I obviously trained all three disciplines pretty hard until March where I wanted to have my last Combined test in Moscow. Definitely trained quite a lot of speed as well but for me, the speed training is always something I do extra. I try to do as much lead and boulder as before since at the end of the day the most important thing in combined is still being best at your main disciplines. After the Olympics got cancelled and we didn’t have many comps I took the opportunity to climb outside as much as possible. I‘m really lucky that we have so many great crags close to my home. I was still very thankful that our federation organized a few comps called the Austrian Summer Series though. With these comps, I could see that my preparation for the Olympics was pretty good since I was able to do well in all disciplines. Finally, we had the only Worldcup of the season in Briançon which I wasn’t sure how serious I should take at first. But when Adam came to Innsbruck and I saw how hard he trains and how serious he takes Briancon, I got very psyched as well and tried to get in good lead shape as fast as possible. Briançon was great and I was pretty happy with my climbing which was important for my head since my lead performance in 2019 wasn’t good enough.

Already before Briancon, I started to have problems with my biceps (some inflammation) especially in Speed, so I had to stop training it for almost 3 months, slowly starting with it again right now. I took the time to climb mostly routes outside since that was causing no pain and of course was a lot of fun as well. All in all a good year but definitely a strange one. Can‘t wait to finally be able to travel more again!

What was your best climbing moments in 2020?
Well there are quite a few rememberable moments. The flash of Never Ending Story definitely was special since the whole 2-day trip was amazing and I always wanted to flash this one so once it actually happened I was so psyched! La Force Tranquille both the original and the new direct version are also amazing memories, I just love this boulder problem. Route wise ‚Weiße Rose‘ comes to mind as a special memory of this year, it wasn‘t a hard fight but I send it right after coming out of hard lockdown so it was special in terms of feeling free and strong again 😊