Oriane Bertone (FRA) and Toby Roberts (GBR) were in top form at the Laval European Olympic qualifiers. The 18-year-olds first won the semifinal with big margins and in the final, they continued dominating the event. Bertone got 99.9 points in boulder and Roberts scored 100 points in Lead. (c) Jan Virt/IFSC

1. Oriane Bertone FRA 171.9 - Toby Roberts GBR 169.8
2. Stasa Gejo SRB 148.5 - Alberto Gines Lopez ESP 133.7
3. Laura Rogora ITA 145.7 - Sam Avezou FRA 132.9
4. Ievgeniia Kazbekova UKR 141.7 - Adam Ondra CZE 132.9
5. Zelia Avezou FRA 136.7 - Yannick Flohe GER 130.8
Complete female results and Complete male results

Bertone when interviewed by the IFSC said: “I was trying to pay attention to the crowd’s reaction whenever I was grabbing a new hold,” said the French climber. “I was thinking ‘Is it this one? No.’ ‘Is it the next one? No.’ And when I took the one I heard everybody go crazy, I turned my head so that I could see the screen and saw my name up there. I don’t even know what to say, I’m crazy happy.

I am very happy with the consistency that I have displayed throughout the whole event: I was first in qualification, first in semi-final, and first in final, and that is not an easy thing to do. I was especially very happy with my bouldering, I’m not very satisfied about my Lead climb because I was pretty stressed."

Roberts; "I have literally no words now. I don’t think is ever going to sink in. Coming into this event, I tried not to have any expectations and just enjoy climbing. It is such a big dream for me, I’ve been training for it for so long. I came so close to it in Bern, but I think I let the pressure get the best of me there, and my weaknesses got exposed. So the aim going away from Bern was to work on my weaknesses, come into this event with a clear head and just enjoy the climbing."

Noé Looser, who last month won the Lead Euro Youth Championships, has sent Nobody is perfect (8c) at Voralberg. In 2020, at 13 she sent her first 8c, Siesta.

Can you tell us more about winning in Helsinki and your 8c ascent?
I am very happy about my competition season this year, I invested a lot of time in it. I was very happy to be back on the rock after my last international competition in Helsinki, and I was very motivated for rock climbing. The 8c route Nobody is perfect is a very nice endurance route with a boulder start. I liked this route very much and enjoyed climbing.

Daniel Fuertes, who since he turnéd 40 has done 13 routes 9a to 9b, has sent Mona lisa integral (9a+) in .

”The route consists of two pitches, the first one is Mona lisa l1 (9a), with three very pronounced boulder problems and a very technical end with kneebars to reach the intermediate anchor point, in which there is a very good but somewhat uncomfortable rest. The second pitch is a hard 8b+, very physical and with a lot of kneebars, in total 55/60 metres of pure joy/suffering!!!!

I think is not 9a+ but I don’t know, maybe 9a hard or 9a/a+… other repeaters will confirm.”

Lorenzo Bogliacino, who last year sent Naturalmente (9a+), has done the FA of Prima Classe (9a) in .

Can you tell us more about the ascent?
During the early summer I was struggling to find motivation to climb on a rope due to the heat, so I was doing long walks in La Stazione. I stumbled upon a cool overhanging wall with crimps and decided to try to bolt some routes. Since I never equipped anything I asked my friend Carlo Giuliberti to teach me the art and help me develop the crag. Thanks to his experience and intuition the new crag started to take a shape and immediately he found the amazing line that eventually became Prima Classe.

I also started to love the art of bolting routes and we shared amazing days of work and fun! After a summer spent bouldering and escaping the heat I committed seriously to try the route and I was able to make the FA after 10 days of work. I thought a couple of weeks about the grade after the FA but honestly I feel 9a is appropriate and well deserved for this amazing and obviously completely natural piece of rock. There is still potential for hard routes at the crag and I hope to keep bolting and developing it in the future!

At the moment there are about 15 routes of which some projects. There are still space for some connections and variation but the main wall is mostly finished. Prima classe is a bit less steep but the main wall is about 40/50 degrees overhanging. The routes are about 30 meters long.

Adam Ondra has flashed Jernej Kruder's Peščena ura (9a) in Sopota. ”Freak moment to stick the crux move at the start! Thanks Jernej!!”

Jernej put it up in 2020 and he was on hand giving Adam beta, and he first showed him the dyno crux. Adam's flash was also the first repeat of this route.

"I didn't really try it, because I'm a bit injured at the moment. I forgot the exact feet, so I just tried the jumping position. He's just the best climber in the world...it's called progress. So for me, it was just incredible to watch. He said it was his second hardest flash after that 9a+.

In 2012, Ondra flashed Southern Smoke Direct (9a) and five years ago he also flashed Supercrackinette (9a+). The Czech has also flashed three 8c+'. There are four other climbers who have flashed 8c+; Alex Megos (3), Jakob Schubert, Daniel Woods and Seb Bouin.

Florian Wientjes, who previously has sent 11 boulders 8C to 8C+, has made the first repeat of Ryuichi Murai's Floatin (8C+) in Mizugaki. The German saw videos of the line in 2020 and got really obsessed. "Back then it was just this amazing line but I did not dare to dream about it even after the first ascent. At the beginning of this year, it came more and more into my mind until I decided this year I want to climb this thing." (c) Xaver Louis

How did you prepare for the trip?
Floatin is one of these lines I really wanted to climb. So I decided in the first half of the year that I would go to Mizugaki. I did everything to make this trip possible. For preparation, I started with some basic strength training focusing on fingers and upper body and a lot of board climbing. The last 4 weeks before the trip it got more specific with a lot of campusboard training focusing on contact strength and pull speed.

How was the first sensation trying it?
The first time I grabbed the holds they felt way worse than I expected. I knew I had to give everything to make it possible. I also knew that I gave my very best in the preparation so I never thought that the move was impossible for me. The only thing that came to my mind was that I maybe would run out of time on this trip.

Can you tell us more about the process of projecting it?
In sessions 1-4 I mainly focused on the first move which is definitely the hardest move. I made a little progress every session starting from initiating the bad holds to getting more and more hight to reach the second hold. The second move felt easier and I was able to stick it in my second try. In session 5 I finally stuck the first move and did the second move but fell on the easy top part because I slipped. (The days before it rained a lot and I forgot to clean the top). That was a big bummer... but I knew I could do the move. After 15 min rest I tried it again and was able to link everything together. All in all, I had 19 days in Japan and 9 climbing days in Mizugaki. This trip was all about Floatin but I definitely have to come back to Japan for the more cultural part and to check out the climbing in the southern part of Japan.

Alizee Dufraisse has sent Kingda Ka (8B) in Gottardo after projecting it for 13 sessions since the summer. The background of the 36-year-old, who almost never has climbed more than three times a week is very interesting. In 2003, she became the Youth World Champion but later she changed sports and in 2006 she became the French Champion in pole vaulting. Missing qualifying for the Olympics, she changed sports again and won the French Championship. Later in 2010, she got the bronze in the European Championship. Her resume also includes three 9a's and last year she sent Heritage 8B (+). Currenty, she is writing her PhD thesis in Sociology in regard to changes in professional climbing.

Can you tell us more about the ascent?
It is a very beautiful and inspiring boulder which is pretty scary. It has been very tricky for me to find out the beta. Some very balancy moves took like two months to solve. I prefer to invest my time in a boulder I would be proud to do. After like two months of trying it I suddenly found a way with the feet transition and then pretty fast could send it. As the snow was coming it was stressful and I am very happy to be able to do it before the pass closes.

Natalia Grossman secured her Olympic ticket to Paris by winning the2023 Pan American Games in Santiago. Previously, Team USA had pocketed three Olympic spots which went to Jesse Grupper, Sam Watson and Piper Kelly. Watson and Kelly both secured spots in speed. Grossman, first won the Boulder round getting 84.3 points and 14.9 points ahead of Brooke Raboutou. When later, Grossman got 88.1 points in Lead, she secured her Paris ticket, although Raboutou was yet to climb. In the end, Raboutou was runner-up 7 points behind.
(c) Complete results
Grossman commented to IFSC: “I feel just so grateful and proud of all the work I have put in. I changed a lot in this past couple of months, in my climbing and in my life, and to see it pay off feels really good. I tend to run really warm when I’m climbing, for some reason, which is funny. So I always have fans on, and even though it was pretty cold tonight, I still had three fans to keep my hands cold. Although I’ve put some pants on for the Lead route, because it got a little chilly!

My friend Oscar was holding his finger up, like, ‘First!’, and I almost didn’t believe it. I wanted to wait until I saw it, just because people tend to say things before they happen… it was a very surreal moment!” (c) Lena Drapella/IFSC

Jesse Grupper won the Boulder & Lead in the Pan American Games in Santiago, meaning he secured his ticket to the Paris Olympics. The Lead expert was #4 in Boulder getting 69.4 points, which left the 27-year-old roughly 15 points behind Sean McColl, Sean Bailey and Zach Galla. "On M3 I actually forgot that [the] timer starts at five seconds, not three, so I totally thought that I timed out. It was really shocking to find out that I actually got the top!"

In his favoured discipline Lead he was dominant, making it to the third last hold with 92.1 points compared to the runner up Sean Bailey with 57.1 points. Third was Zach Galla another three points behind. Complete results (c) Lena Drapella/IFSC

Grupper said to IFSC: "It feels unreal, for sure, it’s an incredible moment for me. I’ve dreamt about this since I was a little kid, and it is so meaningful to see it through to fruition and have it actually happen. I knew that I had some points to make up for from the Boulder round. I was proud of the Boulder round, honestly, I think I’ve pulled out some moves that I don’t know if I would have been able to do a year ago, but I also wanted to fight as hard as I could on the Lead wall. Coming out, I took it one move at a time, I knew that every move would matter, especially on that headwall, and I’m really glad that I was able to pull that out and make it happen."

Mattéo Soulé has done La guerre des Wolfs (9a+) in La verrière after projecting it for some 35 sessions. It is a link-up between La Guerre des Nerfs, which he sent last year, and the Black Wolf project, bolted by his dad.

"It's very hard both physically and mentally since the crux is at the top of the route. I would say it is an 8c+/9a start into a bad rest on a big inverted hold, followed by a crux which must be worth perhaps an 8A boulder. It's clearly the hardest route I've ever done and invested so much."

Can you tell us more about the Black Wolf project?
You have to do an 8c+ approach to get to the first crux which in my opinion is not far from an 8A+/B boulder, then you do an 8B boulder to get to a bad rest and then do the 8A boulder that I also did. This is the hardest route I have ever tried. I think it's at least 9b but possibly harder. It is 25 meters long.