Alex Megos won the Combined qualification after actually having being on top in both Lead and Boulder. Unfortunately he got an rupture on his pinkie in the final but nevertheless he got his Olympic ticket. Quite extra ordinary results as he has just been competing for two years after having taken a five year break after a successful junior competition career. As a matter of a fact, all his stats also including being the first to onsight a 9a are indeed extra ordinary. 2017: 2 + 2 comps in Boulder and Lead; 7 - 2 - 8 - 2 2018: Winning a Lead World Cup and #3 in Innsbruck WCH As he has no yet focused so much on Speed and set a couple personal best in Hachioji (7.57), it is likely he will soon go below seven seconds and in a years time below 6.5 seconds. 8a is currently having the 26 year old German as runner up after Tomoa Narasaki to win gold in Tokyo. Vladek Zumr How did you prepare yourself for Hachioji? I think the best preparation I did was to compete in the world cups this year. I still don't have very much comp experience so doing the whole bouldering season plus the three lead world cups before world championships was a good preparation for me. Of course additionally to that I mostly trained in the gym, I did a lot more comp style bouldering and I tried to climb on the speed wall whenever I had the chance to. Together with my two coaches Patrick and Dicki we analyzed my biggest weaknesses in the comps and worked on those. How was it to take part in so many comps over such a long time? Doing the whole bouldering season this year was a new experience for me. I realized that different countries and different climate conditions do affect the performance on plastic a lot more than expected. In general it was cool participating in a lot more comps this year as it gave me the opportunity to get more into competing and gain some experience. I could figure out lots of things which might help me in competitions to come. How was it to compete in Hachioji over so many days? As I'm used to climbing and training a lot of days in a row it was physically not too tiring to compete multiple days in a row. I as well don't tend to have problems with super thin skin so bleeding tips were not an issue for me. Mentally on the other hand it is tough to be competing for such a long time and my the end of the comp I felt exhausted and tired although I didn't have the impression that I climbed a lot. What happened suddenly winning that boulder Combined qualification? To be very honest I don't really know what happened there. After the bouldering world cups I knew I was capable of doing well in bouldering comps but up to that point I felt like I was never really able to reach my potential in bouldering. At the combined qualification I finally was able to perform well. What does it mean to have qualified to the Olympics also from a training and competing perspective? Of course being qualified for the Olympics was a huge relief for me and something I didn't really expect to happen already at the world championships. Being qualified as well means that I'll keep my focus on comps for another year to prepare for the Olympics. How many speed sessions did you do before Hachioji? I didn't count my speed sessions before Hachioji but I did compete in 4 speed world cups this year and between the world cup in Briançon and the world championships in Hachioji I did 5 speed sessions. What is it you like the most being part of the competition circuit? I like most that I get to meet so many cool people at the comps and spend time with them. It's not easy to meet when you live all across the globe so the comps are the opportunity!

Congratulations, Sunniva Eik Haave and Louis Parkinson, for taking the title of the Vertical-Life Underdogs! The Vertical-Life community was given the great chance to select two Underdogs to compete among the best climbers on the planet at Adidas Rockstars 2019. Sunniva, top of the Oslo Klatresenter gym ranking, and Louis, top of the HarroWall Climbing Centre gym ranking, will be present at Stuttgart’s Porsche-Arena on the 13th and 14th of September. They'll enjoy the same privileges onsite as the invited pros. The top 10 crowd favorites will be rewarded with an adidas / Five Ten Underdog Package. The event will take place on the 13th and 14th of September and will be live-streamed on the Vertical-Life channels. Stay tuned! Learn more about their journey and the event

Giuliano Cameroni has done possibly the first 8B flash FA ever with House of the rising sun in Topside. The only beta he had gotten was looking at Daniel Woods trying the top out on a toprope but in the end he did a different beta. (c) Chad Greedy "A perfect afternoon we walked up to this beautiful project above Art form. The crux is a big lock off from a crimp to a slopey jug. From the beginning I realized it suited me well, so I decided to give it a good first go and everything just worked out!" One week later the Swiss also flashed his second 8A+, Microline in Rocklands and he is #2 in the ranking game.

The European Championship will take place in Zakopane in Poland the next weekend. Interestingly, many of the best are not in the starting list; Janja Garnbret, Shauna Coxey, Petra Klingler, Katja Kadic and Ievgeenia Kazbekova were all Top-10 in the WC 2019 will be missing. As a matter of a fact only two out of the Top-19 in Hachioji will participate. Adam Ondra, Jakob Schubert, Jernej Kruder, Jan Hojer, Anze Peharc and Manuel Cornu were all Top-13 in the WC 2019 but will not compete. None of the Top-17 in Hachioji will compete in Zakopane.

karoline sinnhuber has made a quick ascent of Ragman in Silvretta suggesting a personal down grade to 8A. The Austrian who has done 96 boulders 8A to 8B are #4 in the 8a ranking game. (c) Manuel Schof

Keenan Takahashi has done his third 8C and Giuliano Cameroni his twelfth Monkey Wedding in Rocklands. Cameroni: ”Monkey Wedding is one of my favorite boulders: it has a very nice sequence and it goes from impossible in humid conditions to feel really good when it’s cold and dry. Classic!” On the picture by Julie La Guigne Keenan does the FA of Doomsday 7C. "I’ve stared at this arête above Champside since my first trip in 2014. When I rapped in this season I was excited but horrified in realizing it was possible.⁣"

Zàhéér Ahmád from Pakistan got an invitation from IFSC who paid part of the trip and all the hotel costs for him participating in the Hachioji World Championship. What they forgot to say is that if he would have participated in all three disciplines, he would probably have gotten an invitation to Tokyo 2020, being the only Tripartite candidate competing. The Pakistani, who participated in Speed (26.37) and Lead (1+*) in Xiamen in 2016, did only start in Boulder (no zone) and Speed (false start) in Hachioji. His personal best is 7.95 in Speed. "I never played any sport in my school and in college career. I started Rock Climbing as a first sports in 2013 in my university life and we had our first sport climbing national facility in end of 2017, where we started our practice for international events without coach and physio, just eight guys with manual belay and manual timing. We were sent to China for training which help us a lot. Most of the time we are trying to just gather four persons; one for climb, one for timer and two for belaying. It's hard for me to gather four climbers among the 8 serious climbers in Pakistan. How does it feel knowing that if you had just participated in Lead you would probably have made it to Tokyo 2020? I am training speed climbing five days a week for almost two years now with a long term goal in my mind to make it to Paris 2024. Our resources are very limited with not even an auto-belay and auto-timer yet i like it. We are few guys training hard to improve and it was an honor for me to be selected for Hachioji. I am devastated if i just participated in Lead my dream would come true, which would definitely changed my life forever. I really hope my federation can ask IFSC why they forget to mention such an amazing and unique tripartite quota and if it would be still possible to make it to Tokyo. I appreciate this idea of giving opportunity to athletes for minor Olympic countries can make their dream come true. * It was actually his friend who climbed but he had taken the wrong starting number :)

"It is literally impossible to climb in a way that you are 100 % sure that you never step on a bolt, because then you would not be in the flow and you would never be climbing efficiently." Based on this and that also Shauna Coxsey stepped on a bolt, it is about time that IFSC try to deal with the issue so it can not be such anti climax in Tokyo? Further more, should it be possible to make appeals? Why not just have a referee and possibly a "VAR" room who together takes the decisions without interfering with the coaches.

Number One direkt 7b+ is located in the “Graue Wand” sector of the ‘Schleierwasserfall’ waterfall climbing area. The 30-metre long sports climbing route runs along a south-facing limestone rock face. The challenging route on the slightly overhanging rock requires nimble footwork in the lower section with some far reaches and large holds, as well as smaller finger holes in the upper part of the climb. The climb is surrounded by a beautiful mountain panorama with the spectacular ‘Schleierwasserfall’ waterfall right next door. The climbing area is located in the Wilder Kaiser Mountain Range. All these characteristics contributed to "Number One direkt" being voted one of the Great Lines at Climbers Paradise Tirol by a panel of experts.

In the qualification and in the semi, the number one prio is to select the Top-20 respectively the Top-6. It is of less importance to challenge the very best. This should mean that the very best outcome would be that four (3) boulders are needed to top in order to make it through. If more than 20 (6) tops all five (4), most would say that the boulders were too easy. Looking at the stats in Arco, we can say that the boulder setters did score a better success rate in comparison to in Hachioji. On the other hand, out of the 12 sets of qualification and semi set of boulders, none were too easy but possibly 3 - 6 sets were too hard. As a matter of a fact, checking IFSC stats the last 10 years, it is the same, never too easy but quite often too hard. In order to create better qualification and semi boulder settings, IFSC should inform the setters how many tops are ideal to advance respectively how many percentage tops are wanted.