Toby Roberts and Josh Ibbertson have done the classical Rainshadow 9a at Malham Cove. The excellent 35 meter route was put up by Steve McClure in 2003 and even Adam Ondra has said, "Honestly one of the best climbs I have done." Both Toby and Josh did Raindogs 8a, at age ten, which is the start of Rainshadow. Toby won the European Youth Boulder Championships and was 2nd in the European Youth Lead Championships in 2019.

"I broke my ankle in January and had worked really hard on my rehab and conditioning to be ready for the comp season." When the lockdown came, they built a Moonboard in the garden setting up Rainshadow as his goal. In October they started doing 10-hour roundtrips to Malham but the process was slow in the beginning. All in all, it took him some 20 sessions to send.

"As a climber, I think the most important thing to do is to climb. Climbing is about a lot more than being strong which can only take you so far. Footwork, hip flexibility, efficiency, reading sequences (particularly for comp climbing), improvising on the wall, making good decisions – everything improves with experience and repeatedly going through the process. For me, climbing has always been the most important part of training."

The 15-year-old's next goal is Hubble 9a (8c+) and then Rainman 9b, which has a different much harder finish than Rainshadow. In the long term perspective, he would like to compete in the Olympics. Long interview at Climber.co.uk and The BMC.co.uk. Toby's Insta has the full video of the send. More comments to follow from Josh and his father James (45), who did Bat route as his first 8c, the same day Toby sent his first 9a.

Jonathan Flor reports on Insta reports that he has done Adam Ondra's La Planta de Shiva 9b in Villanueva del Rosario, after working on it for ten weeks. The Spaniard has previoulsy done 38 routes 8c+/9a and harder and he calls this his hardest ever. "The continuation, the motivation and the support of those around me have been the three key factors to be able to send this route." (c) Maragda Gabarre

The 24-year-old finished a five-year intensive competition career in 2018, being #23 in the Boulder World Championship in Innsbruck. He has previously also done a handful of 8C's.

Giorgio Tomatis, who did his first 8c+ when he was 14-years-old and last year was #3 in the Euro Championship, has done Cobra Reale 8c+/9a in Andonno. (c) Carlo Pena

"It is a route that is a link-up of Cobra and Anaconda. To join these two routes you have to make a fairly hard traverse and then end up on the hard part of Anaconda. It was freed by Stefano Ghisolfi with the 8c+/9a grade."

Alex Megos reports on Insta that he has done 15 routes 8c to 9a in Turkey, including four FAs as well as Turkish Haircut 9a. " Thanks. It took 13 days of climbing and I'd say the best crag was Çitdibi. Hopefully more strong climbers will get psyched to go there in the future to repeat some routes and do more first ascents!" (c) Jan Novak

The potential in Turkey seems huge, here is a recent article, Citdibi - A new hardcore Mecca..

"The IOC Executive Board also agreed to add Boulder & Lead and Speed events to the programme, bringing the total number of medal events for Sport Climbing at Paris 2024 to four, two more than at Tokyo 2020. The number of participating athletes will grow to 68 for Paris 2024, a significant increase from the 40 that will compete at Tokyo 2020 next August. " More info at IFSC

In practice, this could mean that 18 males and 18 females will compete in a Combined Lead and Boulder format, as well as there, will be a separate Speed event with 16 males and 16 females in Paris. Another option is 22 respectively 18 but that would mean that the qualification will take a very long long time for Lead/Bouldering in comparison to the Speed qualification.