Jan De Smit has done his first 8B+ Mécanique élémentaire in Fontainebleau. It should be noted that last year was his best, being 42 years old, doing two 8B's. "Even after thirty years of climbing I am still learning. Climbing hard over forty is difficult but not impossible, if you are mindful in your training/climbing then age does not have to be a limiting factor. After a complete biceps rupture last year I thought I might have to lower my expectations but with good surgery and smart training I can now do everything like before. Feeling proud to have done one of the best lines in Font."

Isabelle and Volker Schöffl, have written an article about injury prevention. They are both active climbers and medical doctors. Both have done first ascents up to french 8b, many of them in Laos and Thailand.They are team physicians to the German Climbing team and Volker is a member of the MedCom IFSC and author of „One move too many“. They have done 100+ scientific papers on climbing medicine and are teaching world wide on this topic. They are right now working for an aid organization as doctors in Laos where they also were among the pioneers for Thakhek. Further information: sportmedicine.rocks Specifically they have mentioned some risks for kids and young teenagers - Neglect campus board - No additional weight - Reduce finger intensive bouldering - Avoidance of constant crimping Full article about injury prevention.

Stasa Gejo won the qualification and was the only one to top all five problems and she flashed them all. In the semifinal, she was #13 with zero tops. "Not a good thing to start last... I couln't show my best today mostly because of external conditions and this is not complaining, this is a fact." Beside that negative surprise, all the big names made it through except Petra Klinger. Sandra Lettner, 16, who won the Combined Youth WCH last year is also in the final. Among the male, a similar situation for Nathaniel Coleman who did go form #1 in the qually to #17 in the semifinal. A big surprise was also Jan Hojer as #18. Beside that, all the big names made it to the final including also Tomoaki Takata. In total, Japan had five guys Top-10 but just two in the final. With the old rule, Japan would have had four finalists. All eight boulders was topped out although two boulders was good enough for the male and just one boulder for the female. Complete results ( c) Eddie Fowke, The Circuit Climbing capturing Jernej Kruder who is the the final 18.30. Noteworthy is that USA sent a big team of eight climbers and they did just get two semis who both ended #17. 1. Akiyo Noguchi - Jakob Schubert 2. Janja Garnbret - Tomoa Narasaki 3. Shauna Coxsey - Manu Cornu 4. Miho Nonaka - Tomoaki Takata 5. Sandra Lettner - Jongwon Chon 6. Fanny Gibert - Jernej Kruder & Alexey Rubtso

Jernej Kruder started first of seven finalists and set the bar on extraordinary boulder which all where topped. Boulder two, which he did, including a dynamic quintupleside ways might be one of the most spectacular IFSC boulder as it later was done static as well with a triple double dyno. The Slovenian multi-discipline climber, who prepared himself last weekend by projecting a 9a, is known for his topping celebration face which we got to see often. (c) Eddie Fowke Among the female, the boulders were a little bit to easy as we saw three girls topping out all four boulders with Miho Nonaka winning topping out in only five attempts. 1. Miho Nonaka JPN 44 (5) - Jernej Kruder SLO 34 2. Janja Garnbret SLO 44 (7) - Tomoa Narasaki JPN 24 (3) 3. Akiyo Noguchi JPN 44 (9) - Alexei Rubtsov RUS 24 (5) 4. Sandra Lettner AUT 34 - Jakob Schubert AUT 23 5. Fanny Gibert FRA (33) - Tomoaki Takata JPN 13 6. Shauna Coxsey GBR -(23) Jongwon Chon KOR 7. Manu Cornu FRA Complete results