The Bouldering World Cup is booming and there are 118 male in the starting list for the qualification starting 07.30, Euro time, Saturday morning. The female begin 15.00 with 100 female participating. On Sunday there will be live-streaming from the semi starting 08.00. The finals start 17.00 with the female and around 18.30 with the male. Live results

Great qualification round where all the ten boulders were topped in Moscow. Japan continue their strong domination in the Bouldering World Cup with eight guys qualifying to the Top-20 semifinal. Winners of the two groups were Gabri Moroni and Jongwon Chon. Jakob Schubert and Jan Hojer were the big surprises not making the semi final. Other sensational results were Gabri Moroni moving from #27 in Meiringen to #1 in Moscow, Alex Khazanov from #57 to #3 and Martin Stranik from #73 to 9. Complete results

There were no big sensations in the female qualification in Moscow and the Top-4 ranked were finalists in Meiringen. In general, very good route setting and although five girls topped all five problems, three boulders were good enough to make it to the semi tomorrow. Complete results

Innsbruck 2018 has published a very interesting interview with Alexey Rubtsov who won the World Champion in 2009 after just having trained bouldering for three years. His big focus is the Olympics and last year he tried Lead and was #17 without any training. Here are some of the lonely wolf's straight forward messages. "The brain is the most important part in climbing. Maybe not in speed (laughs), but in bouldering for sure. In Europe, every coach thinks that he's the smartest one and his system is the best. They are authoritarian. But they should understand that they know nothing and start their education from zero. I can't tell you what I do, because that is my secret. Laughs. You need to widen your repertoire to improve, not focusing on small things, but on the big picture... It is better for me to be alone. You could maybe remove the bonus, even. You can do the boulder, or you can't. Bouldering is good. One bonus, two bonuses, ten bonuses, ... what is that? It's not Bouldering."

Matilda Söderlund, one of the leading female climbers in 2012, before she begun her University studies, is back in the game with the FFA of Golden for a moment 8c in Welcome Springs. With her MBA degree her plan is actually to work with climbing in the future. (c) Sophie Odelberg "Golden was my big goal for the spring. This was actually my first experience of projecting a route and the first trip I have done with the aim and focus of just climbing one specific route. Definitely an awesome and developing experience - and an emotional rollercoaster. Sent the route on the very last day of my trip, epic! So happy! One of the best routes I have ever done." Instagram

HIPPYTREE / FIRST ASCENT OF YAYALI from HippyTree on Vimeo.

Deal With The Devil (8B) from ZeroSkillz on Vimeo.

Ingo Filzwieser, the previous national coach of Austria who still is the personal trainer of Sandra Lettner (16) #4 in Meiringen, has a saying. "My motto is that you can not train like the last winner... you have to train like the next winner." When he became an Austria coach seven years ago he analysed the types of holds used and it was like 65 % crimps. This can be compared with 2017, with some 5 % crimps and like 80 % volumes. "Part of the reason for this might be that it was getting more difficult for the route setters to check the right level for the male. I saw Sharafutdinov (superior #1 in 2013) doing a pull up with 65 kilo extra weight. Today, there is very little benefit of such strength, instead bouldering has become a coordination sport, giving chances for the route setters to actually do the problems. You need to be very smart and also tactically skillful. Most boulderer have different shoes they choice from, in order to adapt to different steepness and types of holds. Coming into the boulder, you need to immediately get a plan and then start executing within seconds to not loose time. You can not just start trying hard. Sometimes I see competitors start brushing the holds before they start which actually will make them just loose time. Doing and filming simulation is very important. Later you as a coach can actually give feedback on why they rested so many seconds and how many attempts they did etc. It will become more of a mind game in the future and this was one part how Kilian (Fischhuber) won 22 World Cups. He was also, and still is, physically really strong but he always solved the problem first in his head. In general I like this as it also becomes a better and more injury free sport for the youngsters. It is also good that it becomes more of a team sport as it is a constant process of learning technical and tactical skill from each other. I was quite amazed seeing Narasaki and Noguchi closely following what the others did, in a training camp in Innsbruck, even on yoga classes. You could feel that they really cared about each other. It is also important for the kids to finish school, have other interests and reducing the time they spend on social media. I agree on what recently have been pointed out on 8a that the trainers should have an holistic approach.

Piotr Schab has done a very quick ascent of Estado critico 9a (8c+) in Siurana. "3rd go. Cool moves in the crux and then some technical pumpy climbing to the top. 9a in a day feels damn. I assume it’s low end, but I had to fight very hard for it." In the 8a ranking game, the Pole is #2 after Adam Ondra. (c) Wojtek Kozakiewicz