Ema Seliskar has done her fourth 8b+ the last six months, Agresija II in Kotecnik. In the Age & Gender bonus ranking the 14 year old Slovenian is #13. Last year she was between #9 and 12 in all four European Cups she entered. (c) Lucija Tarkuš "Last year I was really nervous on comps, so I couldn't show my best and because of that I decided that I was not ready to compete in the Worlds yet. I am really looking forward and training hard to participate in the Youth Worlds this year in Arco. Nowdays I train 5 times in a week for 3-4 hours a day."

8a first presented climbing ethics in 2003. We used a traffic light visualization in order to say that there is no absolute strict rules. However, when it comes to "world records" we think you should not move towards getting a "yellow card". Do you agree with the presented ethics? "In sport climbing, compared to most other sports, there are few written rules or use of referees. Instead, the climbing community creates and circulates their own Practice & Ethics. Beginners are sometimes struggling to understand what is "normal" behavior and what's allowed and what's not. Over time, the general procedure has been modified and in different subcultures different ethics apply."

Giuliano Cameroni has done his first two 8C+ just the last month, Poison the Well in Brione and REM in Cresciano. (c) Jimmy Webb "REM and Poison the Well have first been tried by Dave Graham more than 10 years ago. I have never seen chalk on the REM holds, so I guess it hasn’t been tried in the last 5 years. I started trying REM in January and it took me eight sessions to complete it. The key was the mental aspect: during the last four sessions I kept falling off the last hard move without any improvement. After that I decided to take a two weeks break from the boulder. Meanwhile, I was able to climb Poison the Well, which gave me a lot of confidence and motivation to complete REM as well. The night of the send I was positive and didn’t feel any pressure, which allowed me to execute perfectly. Definitely felt like I was climbing in a dream! Also, this whole boulder is hands down my favorite piece of rock and the one I learned the most from." Giuliano arrived to the boulder 23.30 and then did some easy warming up before he sent it 01.00 during the night. Video is coming up in April on Mellow. "I warm up at the boulder, but just the minimum needed by hanging on the perfect Dreamtime holds and grabbing the crimp at 70%. It’s all about that right hand razor, so you really want your skin to be perfect and your fingers to be warm and well rested. You need really cold conditions to hold on the right hand razor. During the day it was too warm, but at 1 AM it was dry and perfect! On REM I liked to warm up super slow and be sure I was at 100 when I gave the good try. On these kind of boulders where it all comes down to the skin, I prefer not doing too many moves in order to preserve the skin, so I mostly hang on comfortable holds or grab small crimps at 50-70%. Grade-wise, a new beta has been found, so the difficulty still needs to be confirmed. Nonetheless it’s still one of the best and hardest lines in Ticino."

Nicolas Januel reports on Insta that he has done Le pied à coulisse which was set up as Fontainebleau's first 8C+ by Guillaume Mondet in 2016. Jimmy Webb and Charles Albert have later repeated it calling it 8C. Nicolas first tried it in 2003 and in total the 36 year old needed 200 attempts over 40 sessions to take it down.

Ryohei Kameyama reports on Insta that he has done the first repeat of Charles Albert's No Kpote Only 9A in Fontainebleau. More info to come. (c) Ryosuke Hibino " I feel "Burden of Dreams" is more a little difficult than this problem. I think this boulder is v16/17 (8C+/9A)." Burden of Dreams is the 9A by Nalle Hukkataival. Ryohei has previously done two 8C's; The Big Island and Kuzan.

Ryohei Kameyama has done the first repeat of Charles Albert No Kpote Only in Fontainbleau and what makes it totally amazing is that he just needed four sessions! He could not do the bar foot sequence by Charles so he found new beta. In comparison, Ryohei could not do the first move on Burden of Dreams 9A, although he could within eight days link it to the top from the second move. (c) Ryosuke Hibino who has helped us out with with some further info. Next is probably La Révolutionnaire 8C+ and then possibly The Big Island sit project. They will stay until 24/3 in Font. Ryohei's secret training is campus board five sessions a week.