James Webb has had a productive week in Rocklands doing three 8B+' as well as Spray of light 8C, which also Giuliano Cameroni did. James is #1 in the ranking game at a new all time high 8a score at 12 180 points. Giuliano is #2 at 12 020 points. In total James has now recorded 1 536 boulders out of which 10, 8C and harder just the last year. On the picture by Keenan Takahashi he does Parzival

Alexey Rubtsov, Boulder World Champion from 2009 who tore his tendon on his long biceps head winning in Ljublijana 26/5, is back on track with two 8c+' in Céüse; Mister Hyde and Baa, baa black sheep. "It's been 12 weeks since surgery, my shoulder feels good and does not hurt anymore:) I felt comfortable climbing. This summer I spent recovering and climbing rocks. Slowly returning the level. Now I have returned home from the rocks and am ready to start training. But my shape is far from ideal. I haven’t done any bouldering in the gym yet, so I'm going to try it :). I will return to the competition in September and start with the European Championship in bouldering on September 6-7. I climbed the speed for the last time in May, and I will return to it in September. But to be honest, after the injury, partly my thoughts were: “everything is not so bad, at least I do not need to do speed now :)”." Noteworthy is that he did 7.27 already in Moscow which was one of the fastest time of the Bouderer specialists. This would mean that he should be able to do at least 6.5 in Toulouse but for that he probably would need to get twice Top-26 in Lead.

hugo parmentier, who this summer has done both his first 9a as well as his first 9a+, has done Trip Tik Tonic 9a in Gorges du Loup. (c) Olivier Moise "It took me 8 days and 17 try. This is my pure anti style. I am really happy to have done a hard route in that style. Same day I try than did 8c 3rd go, 8b+ (tried once before) and 8a+ flash. That was a surreal day after days of struggling in one single route. Now I go back to Paris for school and I will train and climb in Font till January." How can you explain your recent progress? I think it is a result of a year of serious and hard training. But I think it's also a mindset. I really want to progress in climbing and that my main goal in parallel of my studies. I struggled with finger injuries the past years. Now I am starting to know myself better and to be careful.

The results in the Female Youth B boulder qualification is yet another confirmation that one more zone is needed in bouldering. Out of the 89 participants 25 girls = 28 % did not get any zone. Imagine how these girls, some of them travelling 20+ hours to reach Arco, have to explain to friends and relatives that they did not even enter the scoreboard. By getting one zone you could end at #44. As four girls topped all four boulders we can not just say that the boulders were too hard. The problem is that there is a big difference in between the best and the ones on the lower half. As it has been the same problem in all previous boulder comps, it is very hard to understand that IFSC do not add one more zone at least in the youth competitions.

Jorge Diaz-Rullo has done the FA of Patanics 9b in Rodellar. It is a 60 m steep link up of three routes; Pata Negra 8c, the crux of No pain no gain 9a+ and the end of Botanics 8b+. "The most impressive line that I have ever climbed! I didn't think I could do it until the last bolt. Brutal amazing days with the best people! Thank you!" (c) Javi Pec The 19 year old is for the first time ever, #1 in the ranking game having done three 9b's this summer. In the Combined ranking game, the Spaniard has been the superior #1 for more than a year.

Jonatan Flor has done the FA of the 60 m long Apocalipsis de la Gioconda 9b in Rodellar which is a 25 m extension tp Apocalipsis an 8c+/9a he did the FA of last week. It took him around one month of effort to take it down. (c) Guillermo Dominguez

Japan got six out of the nine medals in the oldest male and the youngest boys and girls finals. In the youngest boys, they were most superior being 1 - 3 in both the semi and the final. Shuta Tanaka, in the junior, was the most superior out of all winner as he he was the only one topping both qualies as well as winning both the semi and the final. The worst result for any of the nine participating Japanese were #5. It should be mentioned that in the oldest male category, they filed three appeals out of which one was accepted. Yesterday, 8a published and article saying appeals should be forbidden and replaced with "VAR". Oriane Bertone, #3 in the 8a boulder ranking game, from France won the youngest girl category and she was also won the semi by topping it. 00: Shuta Tanaka JPN (c) Eddie Fowke 04: Junta Sekiguchi JPN - Oriane Bertone FRA Complete results

00: Laura Rogora ITA (c) Marco Iacono 02: Nika Potapova UKR - Hidemasa Nishida JPN Complete results Interesting is that Slovenia did not have one finalist on the second day of the Lead final and that Austria did just get one #7 and one #8 position. Noteworthy is that Brooke Raboutou, who just qualified to the Olympics, was third among the juniors.