97: Kajsa Rosén SWE - Sergei Bydetev RUS 99: Eva Maria Hammelmüller ITA - Jakub Konecny CZE 01: Laura Rogora ITA - Noe Moutault FRA Overall, Italy and France had the best results, braking the domination Austria has had for several years. Among the big climbing nations that had relatively weak results were as usual Germany and Spain. There were also Speed Championships and interestingly, Sam Avezou from France was fifth at 8.50 seconds, which is around the result of Sean McColl's, who is the only senior who has participated in Combined for several years. Last year, Sam won the Youth Worlds in Lead and this year he has won the three last Euro Cups in Boulder including the last Championship. A bit early said, but this 15-year-old could be a man for Tokyo 2020.

In order to be ranked in the Combined World Cup, you need to have results in two disciplines. From the results 2016 we can see that only a couple of male and female have actually gotten semi results during 2016. In previous years, more athletes did compete successfully in both Lead and Boulder but now it seems that almost everyone has chosen to specialize in just one discipline. In fact, the only two athletes that have participated in more than two events in at least two disciplines are Sean McColl and Jakob Schubert. Not one female has actively competed in two or more disciplines. The combined format failure in the World Cup 2016 is confirmed. By checking the starting list for the World Championship you can see that only Sean McColl and Charlotte Durif have signed up by the guys who regularly do the semis in at least two disciplines. Could this be considered as a silent protest towards the Olympic Combined format?

Dani Fuertes has done his fifth 9a in 2016, the FA of Siempre inconformado in Rodellar and he goes to #6 in the 8a ranking game. Photo by Silvia Borgoñon - The route is an old project from Dani Andrada and it shares the start with Siempre libre 9a. After a very hard crux, you climb the last moves of the route Inconformistas 9a. Without a doubt the more difficult sequence of moves of these routes. 25 meters makes up this incredible route in the roof of that cave.

Having done seven 8B+'s, out of which four were FAs,Matt Fultz has done his first 8C, The Wheel of Wolvo in Mt Evans. "Wow, such an amazing boulder! Sent in 5 days over the course of a week. Definitely my style and so much fun to work on! New beta may make it easier, but we will see what other repeaters think." Interestingly, the 25-year-old has had six years of continuous progress and he is currently #8 in the 8a ranking game.

Hungry Monkeys from Ironmanfilms on Vimeo.

Angelina Scarth-Johnson, who did her first 8c route when she was 9 years old, has done two 7C+ Boulders and Panoptikum 8A. "The Cruxs is trying to stay off the ground."