Christof Rauch has done the first repeat of Michael Piccolruaz' La grosse Tarlouze 8C in Magic Wood. It is a 40+ moves link up combining the famous Unendliche Geschichte with La Tarlouze. "You continue on the big rail to the left. From there its about 16 moves (for me) to a good rest on the top jug of Massive attack (till there is the crux) then there is another little sequence where you can fall when you are too pumped or you have bad luck, then you mantle into the slap (no hand rest) and climb a easy highball slab to the top. Only tried it here and then as a little sideproject, but since I can’t crimp properly at the moment I decided to give it some tries. Seems like all the open handed and slopertraining the last weeks payed of and I managed to make the second ascent of this great endurance testpiece. Already had a pretty good session last year, where i fell 4 times at the last hard move. Today, I fell another 2 times at the very end but then I was lucky enough to fight my way to the top. Thanks to Markus for the huge support and the essential beta."

Jorge Diaz-Rullo has done his first 9b, Planta de Shiva in Villanueva del Rosario which Adam Ondra put up. It has previously been repeated three times including Angy Eiter. (c) Javi Pec The day after he also did Mangarbo and Mandanga total, both 9a's. In the 8a ranking game, he is #1 in the Combined ranking game. More info to come.

Here is the result from the Japan Combined this weekend where the Top-5 qualified to the World Championship in Tokyo. The biggest sensation was that Futaba Ito, worst result in Boulder WC 2019 is #9, did not make it as she was #6. ClimbersJP 1. Miho Nonaka 7 - Tomoa Narasaki 6 2. Akiyo Noguchi 12 - Kai Harada 12 3. Ai Mori (15) 12 - Kokoro Fujii 36 4. Natsuki Tanii (15) 72 - Keita Dohi 40 5. Nanako Kura 128 - Yushiyuki Ogata 22

Janja Garnbret won The Rock Ljubljana and interestingly, Garnbret had to do the last boulder first try as otherwise, the winner of the Euro 5 000 had been Vita Lukan. More info. Among the male, Alexey Rubtsov got the victory but very sadly he reported on his Insta that he tore the tendon of the long biceps head. Most probably this mean he will not be able to compete in the WCH in Tokyo. In order to make it to the Top-20 qualification event in Toulouse, he needs to be fully recovered for the last two event in China and Japan in October.

Here are some old training articles that could motivate you to keep pushing. Patxi Usobiaga Zlagboard training Running can be contra productive Steve McClure training Training 40+ Technical endurance advices Dyno tips Recruitment finger training

Based on some 1 500 unique votes, "Best climbing rope 2019?", we can see very small changes in comparison to the 2016 results, shown in brackets. 19 % Sterling (21) 18 % Beal (19) 17 % Mammut (18) 15 % Petzl (12) 14 % Edelrid (13) 10 % Tendon (12) 06 % Other (5)