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Jonathan Flor reports on Insta reports that he has done Adam Ondra's La Planta de Shiva 9b in Villanueva del Rosario, after working on it for ten weeks. The Spaniard has previoulsy done 38 routes 8c+/9a and harder and he calls this his hardest ever. "The continuation, the motivation and the support of those around me have been the three key factors to be able to send this route." (c) Maragda Gabarre

The 24-year-old finished a five-year intensive competition career in 2018, being #23 in the Boulder World Championship in Innsbruck. He has previously also done a handful of 8C's.

Giorgio Tomatis, who did his first 8c+ when he was 14-years-old and last year was #3 in the Euro Championship, has done Cobra Reale 8c+/9a in Andonno. (c) Carlo Pena

"It is a route that is a link-up of Cobra and Anaconda. To join these two routes you have to make a fairly hard traverse and then end up on the hard part of Anaconda. It was freed by Stefano Ghisolfi with the 8c+/9a grade."

Alex Megos reports on Insta that he has done 15 routes 8c to 9a in Turkey, including four FAs as well as Turkish Haircut 9a. " Thanks. It took 13 days of climbing and I'd say the best crag was Çitdibi. Hopefully more strong climbers will get psyched to go there in the future to repeat some routes and do more first ascents!" (c) Jan Novak

The potential in Turkey seems huge, here is a recent article, Citdibi - A new hardcore Mecca..

"The IOC Executive Board also agreed to add Boulder & Lead and Speed events to the programme, bringing the total number of medal events for Sport Climbing at Paris 2024 to four, two more than at Tokyo 2020. The number of participating athletes will grow to 68 for Paris 2024, a significant increase from the 40 that will compete at Tokyo 2020 next August. " More info at IFSC

In practice, this could mean that 18 males and 18 females will compete in a Combined Lead and Boulder format, as well as there, will be a separate Speed event with 16 males and 16 females in Paris. Another option is 22 respectively 18 but that would mean that the qualification will take a very long long time for Lead/Bouldering in comparison to the Speed qualification.

Bernd Zangerl, one of the hardcore boulder pioneers, especially in Magic Wood, has done yet a new FA, Grenzenlose in Valle dell'Orco. No suggested FA grade but as it took him quite a while it should be at least 8b trad. More info to come. (c) Jacopo Larcher

"I could have built a landing zone or organized 10 crash pads that have now become "the norm", but I'm not friends with these trends. Adapting the challenge to a personal comfort zone would have made the first ascent easier and more quicker for sure. But, isn`t mother nature the director and sets the level of challenge for us, also in terms of protection? Physically I knew straight away that I can do this project, the crux was the mind. I prefer to work alone or with my best friend on mental physical challenges like this. I am oldschool, but choosing the longer way also means a more intense examination of the project." Full story