Sorato Anraku, 16, comments on his gold in the Lead World Cup in Koper. “I was so nervous before my climb, but I tried to put that to the back of my mind and just climb well. After my first Lead gold in Briancon I wanted to carry that on, and I have been training really hard. I wanted another gold in Koper and I have it now so I’m happy.” (c) Jan Virt/IFSC

Earlier this year the youngster from Japan became the overall Boulder World Cup winner and with one Lead event remaining, he has already secured one more title, being the first male winning both disciplines overall in the same year. Talking with 8a in Brixen in June, Sorato said he mainly trains alone or with some locals from Chiba, 1.5 hours from Tokyo. Most of his training consists of bouldering, doing circuits, and sometimes some hangboarding. He does not follow any strict training plan. A couple of times a month he travels to Tokyo to train with guys from the national team.

Janja Garnbret won her 26th Lead World Cup victory and she only needs to be #9 in the last event in China, in two weeks, to secure her sixth Lead overall title. However, she is not registered to participate. “Finally I got my revenge here in Koper. I enjoyed it so much. From qualis to semis to finals, I don’t know if I have ever been as relaxed as I have been in this competition. I enjoyed climbing in front of a home crowd, with the support I really enjoyed, I’m so glad I finally got my first gold in Koper.

I have to say thank you to all the kids for all the screaming, that really gave me extra motivation. I hope they enjoyed our show. I wish they will all train hard and join us one day on the stage here in Koper.”

1. Sorato Anraku JPN Top : Janja Garnbret SLO Top
2. Jesse Grupper USA 42+ : Ai Mori JPN 44+
3. Alberto Gines Lopez ESP 23 : Vita Lukan SLO 40+
4. Toby Roberts GBR 21+ : Chaehyun Seo KOR 38
5. Alex Megos GER 21+ : Natsuki Tanii JPN 33+
Male result : Female result

Marco Zanone has started September by doing Condé de choc (9a) in Entraygues. “This line climbs very well. Really cool and hard moves all the way to the top. Stoked to get back on the 9a range.” (c) Valeria Mutinelli

Can you tell us more about the ascent?
Conde de Choc is a route that has always been under my radar. It’s quite short, very bouldery at the start, I think it requires to be bit a boulderer and a bit sport climber. I really like that type of style, the one I probably like the most, so I knew one day I had to try it. This august I climbed in Entraygues more than usual. Did Sankukai in a few days during a 2 weeks stay so I was psyched to try harder.

After a 10 days break, at the beginning of September I returned to France with not a specific goal, because we didn’t really knew where we could have climbed. An epic rain storm hit just before we left home, so the choice was easy. Let’s go to Entraygues that is always dry.

Felt pretty strong on the intro boulder and in the meantime I was working the upper part (that I have already climbed in 2021) to make sure to have everything dialed for the day I will pass the crux. After the first 2 days struggling with the humid, on my third climbing day of the trip, the wind came and everything worked out perfectly. The first time I did the boulder I went to the top 💪🏻

Since June my focus as always been in Ceuse, but summer It’s too hot for me to try at my limit. Now that fall is at the gate I’m super excited to go back there to say hi to an old friend.

Adam Ondra bolted Project Big in Flatanger in 2013. Lately, he has been trying it together with Jakob Schubert and Seb Bouin. Last year, Seb made the FA of the 130m Nordic Marathon (9b/+) in the huge cave and now his focus is Project Big.

Mejdi Schalck, who won the silver at the Boulder World Championsip last month, has done Bio sharma graphie L1+2 (9a) Rocher de Beverau. (c) Arthur Delicque

“I was the 3rd ascensionist of this route after Mathieu Bouyoud and Esteban Daligault my friend. I made it on my 4th session. The route have a first part in 8b+ where you don’t have to be pumped, then you have a pretty good rest and a hard part with 15 physical moves on big underclings 🦾”

In this year's Boulder World Cup the 19-year-old did just three events, scoring two wins and one third place finish. He has also skipped most of the Lead World Cups and his next competition will be the European Qualifier in Laval in October, where the winner will get an Olympic ticket.

Felipe Camargo, who did El Bon Combat (9b) in 2019, has done the FA of Auto Retrato (9a+) in Serra do Cipó. Already this year, he has made the FA of two 9a's including Gran Reserva (9a) which was a ten-year-old project he did last month.

" After sending Gran Reserva I saw a possible harder start and bolted it. Auto Retrato changes the 8a+ intro to an 8b+/c intro, making it way harder so I give it 9a. It's a power endurance route! 50 moves with no good rest...finishing on a really cool 7C+! Really unique holds on the serra do cipó limestone. It took me some 30 sessions including also Gran Reserva."

Can you tell us more about the process?
The conditions never aligned, the season here was really bad this year and I had to try everything...first, I was climbing at midnight with a Makita Fan hanging on the rope! I fell off the very last move and had to go home for a few events ...when I came back, the rain came and it started to get really humid during the night...Today I finally switched my strategy, woke up at 5 a.m. started warming up at 6:20, and had two really bad tries where my body wasn't understanding why the hell I was climbing so early 😂😂 I finally sent the route on my third try of the day at 8:40AM!

Katie Lamb has become the first woman to climb 8C+ by completing Box Therapy (8C) in RMNP Misc/Unsorted. Daniel Woods made the FA back in 2018, and only Drew Ruana and Sean Bailey had repeated it prior to Katie. Box Therapy is a sit start to an older 8A, put up by Tommy Caldwell, and it comprises of 18 moves on a 50 degree overhanging granite face located at 3,200m. The 25-year-old has previously done six boulders graded 8B+. (c) Keenan Takahashi

On Instagram Katie comments, "A lot of my progress can be attributed to just showing up. I know where I can be and keep coming back until I get there. It’s an asset, but can make climbing less fun. Recently I’ve been feeling less excitement, but more joy."

Andrea Chelleris, who this spring became the U-14 Italian Slalom Champion, in skiing, has done Halupca 1979 (9a) in Mišja Peč. "I tried the route for 5 days (8 tries plus one last year) last week I went so close to sending it but it was too hot so I came back today with a discrete [improved] temperature that allowed me to send the route."

Andrea made the 8a headlines for the first time at age 9 when he did his first 8b+ and last year he did . This summer he was #5 and #6 in two Euro Youth Cups and #22 in the Youth World Championship.

What is your autumn plan?
I will go to Helsinki to do the European Youth Championships, hoping for a good result after a very bad world championship.

What does a normal training week look like for you?
I train 4-5 times a week. I travel 50 minutes to Climbing ranch and I always train there. I do power sessions, endurance training and power endurance. I'm doing more power sessions because I need to improve my explosive power. Mainly spray wall training but when I need to do onsight training I do lead training [climbing].

Janja Garnbret, who last weekend won the Arco Rock Master's Speed Duel, reports on Instagram that she has made a quick ascent of Underground 8c+/9a). The 24-year-old Slovenian has been the best female climber in the world since 2016 when she won her first, out of eight, World Championships. On rock, she onsighted her first 8b at age 15 and one year later she flashed La Fabelita (8c). She has also onsighted two 8c's but has not yet spent much time projecting routes. Her only 9a, she did at age 18 in a mere five tries.

Martina Demmel has done Chri-Su (8c) in Allgäu. The 21-year-old, has also onsighted eight routes 8a to 8b this summer, which makes her #1 in the 8a female ranking.

”Probably the route that I'm the proudest of yet/lately as it reflects my improvements in antistyles over the last 3 years (13 tries) what allowed some continuous progress. I haven't only struggled with the athletic start but also the resistance part higher up which threw me off once after finally connecting the start... Such an unforgettable moment, especially because of the fight all the way & epic condis during the send (huge thunderstorm around me)! Special thanks to Isi, Roland & Catrin for the memorable times at Rotti! Not finished yet here;)”

Can you tell us what a normal week for you looks like?
I don't have something like a normal week except for the months when I'm in school (from October - February): it's a special programme from the Bavarian police offered for professional athletes with police school from 7 am till 3 pm including 2 days when it finishes 2,5 hours earlier. So I would train (often with the national team members around Munich) for about 3-4 hours on Monday, Wednesday & Thursday + some strength & antagonist exercises two times a week in the morning. If the weather is good enough, the weekends are reserved for rock😊💃😁... the rest of the year varies a lot every week because it depends on the different phases I'm in😅😉.