Giuliano Cameroni has done the FA of Raised by Wolfes 8B in Rocklands and comments. "One of the best boulders on earth. On Insta, he continues, "Opened this new boulder with @dawoods89 up at top shelf! One of the best climbing spots and one of the coolest blocs ever. Let us also add, one of the coolest bouldering pics. (c) Chad Greedy

1. Janja Garnbret: Winning three titles just confirms that she is the best ever competition climber in the history. Amazing performance by here. 2. Japanese domination: 50 % of the finalist in the Combined final. Amazingly impressive and there must be few individual sports where we see one country being so much ahead. 3. Japanese Speed progress: Tomoa Narasaki did clock 6.15 which would have taken him to the final in most prior Speed World Cups. Among the best Boulder/Lead climbers the male Japanese totally dominate. 4. Rishat Khaibullin: Last year he was #23 in the Combined doing 6.72 in Speed. He just trains it once a week so he does not match the criteria being a proper "Speed-specialist". In his three Speed WCs in 2019 he has improved from 6.88 - 6.47 - 6.15 and then he did 6.05 in Hachioji Speed followed by 5.83 beating the world champion Ludovico Fossali in the Combined. As a matter of a fact, this was good news for IFSC being a way better overall climber. In his last Lead run, he wisely skipped two clips and continued winning the bronze. 5. Drama especially with Time: As time decides equal hold score in Lead, we see faster climbers and more drama. In the first 6 - 7 seconds Speed run, it is decided whether you will get 1 - 4 or 5 - 8. With the multiplication format this have a massive impact. At the same time, the overall winner is, at least in theory, an open affair until the leader is out in Lead.

In football and actually in most sports, it is not possible to make an appeal against the referee's decision. For some reason, it is the opposite in climbing which sometimes make us wait for an hour or so until we have the final result. Sure the judges can make wrong calls but that is how it is. In football, in order to solve this, they have introduced VAR for critical goal situations in the most important games. As it stands, the team coaches can make appeals and then the result could reflect also how good the coaches are to make it in writing. Would it not be great to skip this appeal procedure and also introduce VAR in the Olympics? The VAR guys would be looking at the live-streaming and other cameras and they could whisper to the referee that he/she should have a look at certain incidents. In the same way, the referee could ask the VAR guys to check close calls. Further more, with a head referee there could me some space for not following the rules strictly black or white. In situations like Adam Ondra's questionable stepping on a bolt, the referee could say that it was in the grey zone and that Ondra did not benefit from it.

Hannah Donnelly has done her first 8A+, Green Mamba in Rocklands after 12 days projecting. She comments on Insta, "I have learned so much both mentally and physically about myself and what I am capable of in my climbing. I couldn’t be more thankful for the process. Thanks to @jwebxl for being there through the emotional waves. I couldn’t have pushed through without the endless hugs and support. (c) Jimmy Webb

Maggie Odette has done her first 8c (b+), T-Rex in Maple Canyon. "Call it soft, I don’t care. It’s not like I’m crushing anyone with my scorecard these days, anyway. I can’t give this the same grade as Eulogy or Pipedream. More hard moves with fewer, crappier rests, and about a thousand times more pumpy. Fourth time repeating Millenium on the way to the T-Rex chains."

The Youth World Champion started today in Arco with the Lead flash qualification. In the oldest boy category, Shuta Tanaka who was #3 in the last Lead WC, was #1 and all the three Japaneses were Top-8. Also in the youngest boy category there is a Japanese on top, Satone Yoshida, the only one topping both routes. In the youngest girl category, Ryu Nakagawa has also topped both qualification routes. In both these categories are all the three from Japan Top-4. Complete results It should also be mentioned that their best five juniors do not participate as they competed with good results in the senior world championship last week. Ai Mori (15) - #3 in the Lead WCH Futaba Ito (17) - #7 in the Combined WCH Nanako Kura (19) - #6 in the Bouldering WCH Nishida Hidemasa (16) - #1 in the Lead WC in Briancon Keita Dohi (18) - Youth Olympic winner last year

peter dawson has done his second 9a, Hubble at Raven Tor after some 15 sessions. It was set up by Ben Moon in in 1990 and until recently considered the first 8c+ in the world. Probably do to adaptation to the current grade inflation, it has been upgraded to 9a. "I thought it was harder than Rainshadow so yeah 9a." Here is the video of the 12 meters long route. (c) Jonathan Bean "I first tried Hubble last November because I wanted to see what it was all about, it’s historic and famous for having a very hard crux. The route is extremely short and after 10 moves you are into 7c climbing to the chains. I started making significant links in spring and by summer I was reaching the final moves. The sequence came together two weeks ago and it was my second 9a. Climbing it was one of my best experiences as I absolutely nailed the sequence and to make such a hard sequence feel quite solid was incredible! The key was gaining the finger strength which I did by trying in the route lots. Next I would like to try Mutation which is another classic 9a at Raven tor."

BJ Tilden, who previously has done four 9A FAs, has repeated his first 9a, White Lightning in Wild Iris. "I always knew this link up was Just too obvious to ignore. I wasn't sure I would ever be ready for another battle with moonshine, but after Ryan Sewell Opened up the link I had to check it out. It's awesome! More different than I thought it would be, and the moonshine crux is still a bastard! I really don't know how much the Heart Full start adds to the grade. It certainly stiffens it up a little!"

Here is the Olympic winning odds I would have suggested if having worked on a betting company. 1. Tomoa Narasaki 1.9 - Janja Garnbret 1.4 2. Alex Megos 4 - Akiyo Noguchi 5 3. Jakob Schubert 4.5 - Japan selection 6 4. Adam Ondra 5 - Shauna Coxsey 9 5. Japan selection 8 - Mia Krampl 10 6. Sean McColl 50 - Jessica Pilz 15 7. Jongwon Chon 55 - Chaehyon Seo 30 8. Others 30 - Others 20 It should be mentioned that Chaehyon Seo will not be able to participate in Toulouse as she has not done any Boulder WCs in 2019. Her last chance to qualify to Tokyo is at the Asian Championship. If she does not make it there, she wold have great chances to get the tripartite ticket. Megos is second as it seems he has not trained Speed much but should be able to get below seven seconds. On the other hand, Ondra is placed fourth due to his Speed ability. Possibly, it would be good for Adam for, the first time ever in his competition career, be classed like an underdog. Rashat Kaibullin, or any of the best Speed climbers are not listed, as they will have no chance of winning although great chances of getting the bronze, due to the multiplication format.

Alexander Rohr has recorded his fifth 9a, The Illusionist" in Flatanger. (c) Jon Solberg Høyland "I think i always had the level to do it. But it was very hard test mentally. Sometimes I could not climb on the route for more than a week because it was wet. Now I finally was lucky. It‘s a route from Adam. It is very good and very hard so I never wanted to bail. I basically never bail, and it was one of the routes I always wanted to do. A real hard route and not a random 9a somewhere from someone and no one knows if it is really is hard. I went to Flatanger last year to do it. Well, it was either raining heavily or super hot. I was close and had to leave empty handed. This July I came back, and again, it was more than 30 degrees and the route was wet on most of the days. So I had the plan B to come back in late August, and here I am."