Pull - A Story About Lead Climbing from Blake McCord on Vimeo.

Alex Puccio has done her fourth 8B+, Penrose Step in Leavenworth. "AMAZING!!! Revenge after getting robbed a year ago when I fell off the very end and then the rain came in. It went down second day this trip and I tried it I think 2 days last time. So took 4 maybe 5 days in total split over the two trips. What an AWESOME line!!! :)" (c) Joel Zerr In the 8a ranking game she is #17 among the guys which is the highest any female has had since we started with the scorecard in 2000. The runner up in the World Championship in 2014 is listed to do the first World Cup in Meiringen the next weekend. "I’m actually not doing the first 2 world cups anymore. This was a last minute decision. I decided that since I’m going to go to Europe this summer/ fall for 3 months to basically do Lead WC’s and Boulder WC with World Champs and others competitions on top of that. I also didn’t feel 100% prepared to try and win a WC yet and during/after our Lead Nationals I was and still am dealing with a couple little finger injuries. They seem to feel a lot better on rock which is nice! I will be in Vail WC for sure and then a TON of comps all the ways till December after that! If I didn’t take care of my body now and take a break from indoor climbing I would really feel it later this year! A break now and then is really needed and I’m not only a indoor/ competition climber. I would go crazy if all I did was competitions still."

Jonathan Siegrist has made the first repeat of two Joe Kinder routes; The Re-Up in Cathedral from 2008 and Bone Tomahawk in Fynn Cave from 2016. "Super steep and seriously tenuous with essentially no rest. My anti-style for sure but still it felt a little too hard for 9a. Respect to the Kind Kid!" (c) Tara Kerzhner In total, Jonathan has done 34 routes 9a and harder excluding a couple he has given a personal down grade for. In the 8a ranking game, he is #2 after Adam Ondra.

Sachi Amma, stopped competing after he won the World Cup in 2014. Next year he reached his goal to do ten routes 9a or harder. Midways in 2016, he took a another break from doing hard routes but now he is back with a new focus on doing hard FAs. Three months ago he did the FA of Maturity 9a+ and last week he did Soulmate proposing 9b. More info on his Insta. (c) Masaaki Maeda What have been the important aspects about your climbing and how have they changed over the years? There are so many aspects about climbing. It drags out myself from darkness. It makes connection with so many people. It is a social. It is the way how I live in this social. It is the way to express myself. Everything acts together. But the strongest aspect to me is that it is a tool to meet my existence. You can imagine that art, Yoga or meditation is the tool to meet your existence. Climbing is getting like those action to me. Why do you think they change over years? I spent so much energy in competitions. Then I shifted to hard routes in outside. I released all the energy. Then I started opening hard projects. Certainly if you see only actions in the real world, I keep changing. And my inside also transform strongly. But deep inside of me not change at all. Jens got a question about my changes and transformations. But many of my friends says that “Your spirit does not change at all.” I can say both is correct. But I would like to arrow myself to change and transform. And hope you feel really deep inside of me is taking root to my existence more and more. How do you see your climbing lifestyle will change over the coming years? I feel that life has some secret. Climbing has some secret. You know what I mean. All the changes and transformations are happening without my control. I do not know what I can do with it. Maybe I keep doing one thing for 10 years. But you must see something is changing and something is more rooted.

Alex Pucciohas done Beautification, 8A and Turbulence 8A+ in Leavenworth. In total she has done a total of 167 boulders 8A and harder which is totally superior among the female. (c) Joel Zerr "Sweet Line! Harder than most V11's, but pretty soft for V12. Went down pretty quick in the sun. First time ever trying it. Got to climb 3 awesome lines that I never got the chance to try on our last trip. :)" In two weeks, the runner up in the World Championship in 2014, will begin the World Cup season in Switzerland also with some Olympic interest. "I plan to do some Bouldering and Lead world cups this year, but not the whole seasons and I will be at World Champs for sure competing in at least Bouldering and Lead.

James Webb has done the first repeat of Matt Fultz The Expanse in Joe's Valley giving it a personal 8B+ grade. "Really unique line from Fultz! Morpho one for sure! Suited me well so felt maybe more 8B+? Time will tell." (c) Taylor McNeil In the 8a ranking game, James regains his #1 position 3 points ahead of Christof Rauch, due to an 8B flash. In total, James has recorded 14 flashes 8B, including three personal down grades.

Leo Skinner has done his first 8A+, Evil Sideways in Dinas Rock and here is the video. "Really psyched to get the 4th ascent of this boulder on my 3rd session! I’m really lucky to have some local strong climbers support me and to put up many hard testpieces like this one in my local area. The boulder breaks down into two sections of powerful climbing. The first being a 5 move V9 and the second a 5 move V8/9 with no rest in between."

Perspective: Daniel Woods | EP 1 from Petzl-sport on Vimeo.

Tomasz Oleksy, one of the most experienced IFSC route setter who has won five WCs in Speed and two in Boulder, shares some interesting thoughts in regards the upcoming season. How do you deal with bigger gap in between the athletes and also much higher number of participants? In my opinion it's really the same deal. For us is important to make selection specially in qually round. We try to set problems with the level that athletes on 18th-20th position in the ranking can climb two problems out of five. Sometimes it is harder and sometimes it is easier. It's very important to not have any tie places. The numbers of athletes is not important for me. The only bad thing is that you have less time for setting and to deal with some changes. Any thoughts in regards the new format focusing more on zones? This year zones are much more important then before. This means it should be bit harder to get zones in generally. We will see how it works? More not so strong will possibly suffer with zero zones. In regards volumes and parkour, what do you see in the future? I think parkur is one of modern styles and very attractive for watching and already athletes start to understand. For route setting is very hard to adjust and you spend more time for setting but at the end is cool and for the selection it works very well. For the future I see maybe more bigger shapes, same profile of the wall for two groups for the qually round. It will be good to have new stuff for screwing holds nobody have seen before, bigger team for setting and more testers. That means we need better logistic plane and spend more money at the end hehe :)