Ryuichi Murai has done the fifth ascent of Dai Koyamada's Hydrangea in Shiobara, which actually was his third 8C in a month. "Finally I send this problem! This is ''Hydra 8B'' + 6 moves 8A/A+. It took me 4 days to climb it. When I joined ''Hydra'' after the 6 moves, I felt it's quite another thing. So, I was fell many times at the part of ''Hydra''. I'm so happy to complete all problems of ''Nodate roof''! Next, I'm going to try Epitaph 8C in Hourai or Project of ''Nodate roof'' in Shiobara." How do you train? I don't particularly training, but I do sometimes ''ABC chin-ups"which is a training that I was taught when I went to the camp in Austria before. ''ABC chin-up'' which I repeat many times. 1. To chin-up three times. 2. To keep 5 seconds with the arm full bend. 3. To chin-up three times. 4. To keep 5 seconds with the arm open 90 degrees. 5. To chin-up three times. 6. To keep 5 seconds with the arm open 120 degrees.

Kevin Aglae reports on Facebook that he has done the FA of L'Enfumette 9a in St Leger. (c) Jan Novak

The Boulder World Cup starts on the 15.4 in Switzerland and there are 147 people on the starting list. Later the circuit continues in Japan, China, India, Austria, USA and Germany. Here is the 8a ranking for the first event but as some of these guys do not plan to do all mileage the overall is hard to speculate at this point. Who do you expect? 1. Jan Hojer - Janja Garnbret 2. Alexsey Rubtsov - Anna Stöhr 3. Jongwon Chon - Akiyo Noguchi 4. Dimitrii Sharafutdinov - Megan Mascarenas 5. Jakob Schubert - Shauna Coxey 6. Jernej Kruder - Katharina Saurwein 7. Rustam Gelmanov - Fanny Gibert 8. Alban Levier - Margo Hayes 9. Martin Stranik - Melissa Le Neve, Miho Nonaka 10. Sean McColl - Petra Klingler 11. Jorg Verhoeven - Stasa Gejo 12. Tyler Landman - Giorgia Tesio

Enter the Dragon 8A+ from George Carmichael on Vimeo.

Drew Ruana, who started climbing when he was four and who has done many headlines throughout the years, including a 9a FA, has had an amazing day in Red River Gorge. "Super fun day 2 here at the red! I flashed Kaleidoscope (8a+), managed to send Southern Smoke (8c+) after two days of effort, and I surprised myself by sending Thanatopsis (8c) in three tries in a single day of effort!" (c) Kyle O'Meara What is the plan and ambition 2016 and what about training and comps? There are a couple local routes I want to do in the 9a range, and I want to do Le cadre in Ceuse this summer. Maybe some local bouldering in the 8B range. I train 3-4 days a week. Lots of boulder training and also lots of route/endurance training. My training fluctuates a lot. I just have a coach who also coaches a lot of other people. No Youth World Championship. I am just doing the American Youth circuit.

Hule-festen, 8B FA from martin mobraten on Vimeo.

Based on Similarweb statistics 8a has tremendously strengthened its position during 2016 with an increase in traffic of 39%. The most striking figures are however that the average 8a visitor stays over 15 minutes and that 84% come direct, instead of coming from Facebook, Google, etc. The average "Time on site" for our competitors are below 3 minutes and they get below 40% of their visitors "direct", which means that most of their traffic comes from Facebook and Google. 8a is also the only website which is spread evenly around the globe while all our competitors get some 50% of their traffic from their country of origin. To sweeten up the story, the first week of April has also started up with a new record when it comes to visits and unique visitors.