Gambaro Matteo, who won the Italian Lead Cup in 2005, has done his fourth 9a, Esclatamasters in Perles. Some years ago it was down graded to 8c+ but since a hold break, it is one again by most considered 9a. "Me and Elena (Chiappa) are on holidays for two weeks. I tried it for five days and did it in ten attempts in total. Today very warm so I climbed at 18.00. Incredible line." So how did you prepare for this trip? I climb hard and I bolt a lot at home in Val Pennavaire (Albenga). I opened the hardest lines and this winter I decided to train again as in my past competition years.

Joe Cardwell, who previously has done three 9a+', reports on Insta that he has done Joe Mama 9a+ in Oliana. (c) William What is next and what was the trick to arrive to Spain in such super shape? Next is a couple routes I’ve been trying at other crags. Also just enjoying climbing here in Catalonia with a fun crew. We’ve been visiting numerous areas instead of fixating on one spot which has been really refreshing. The majority of the training I did before was primarily bouldering and power endurance circuits, slightly different approach to what I’ve done in the past. It also didn’t hurt that I tried the route in Oliana quite a bit last spring in terrible conditions, it was almost constantly wet which made it hard to give it continuous effort. This season it’s warmer but everything is dry which made a huge difference!

"About 30 moves and if I had to put a grade on it I’d say it’s comparable to a 9a route. I know there is a travers rating system but no idea how it works. Anyone know what this could be?" Travers grading is in between the boulder and lead difficulty. A 9a route is more or less the same in difficulty as to do 8B+/C. In other words, Sharma's FA travers could be travers graded 8C/+. On the other hand, 8a has for many years said that it is just confusing to use travers grading as it is impossible to draw a line when a boulder qualifies to be travers graded. 8a use small letters when the difficulty is based on the route grading system and big letters for boulder graded climbs.

The Top-20 in the overall World Cup will qualify to a special event where the Top-6, including the country quota, will make it to Tokyo. (It is not clear if the ones who have already qualified to Tokyo will be allowed to participate and the same goes for the guys where the country quota has been full. It must be mentioned that it will not be fair if not everyone can take part as this will be the only competition with the Olympic format, prior to Tokyo.) 1. Mickael Mawem FRA - Sol Sa KOR 2. Sascha Lehmann SUI - Shauna Coxey GBR 3. Aleksei Rubtsov RUS - Clair Buhrfeind USA 4. Sam Avezou FRA - Anna Tsyganova RUS 5. Yannick Flohe GER - Vita Lukan SLO 6. Domen Skofic SLO - Jain Kim KOR

Philipp Gaßner, who did his first 8c+ when he was 14 years old, has done two 8c+ the last month in Margalef; Zipayorik ez!! and Bumaye. "Needed a bit to find the right beta for me then I sent it quite solid; fell once just before the anchor because of a dumb foot slip; for sure the best route in this length I‘ve done so far." The first time Philipp made 8a headlines was in 2011 when he 10 years old did his first 8a+. In the Combined ranking game the 18 year old is #6.

Caroline Sinno has done her third 8B transverse in Fontainebleau, Green Fingers which normally should more or less correspond to an 8A+ boulder. It is like eight meters where the cruxes are a down climb and the top out. It took her some 8-10 sessions during the winter, Video. (c) Lucien Martinez ”It’s very bouldery and there are two cruxes. First one gave me some problems, I had to be creative. I really enjoyed the process. I thought I would do it before winter but I got shut down by bad weather. As soon as it started to be good weather again it took me two sessions to finish it. Very happy :)” Caroline has now started to work on L’Insoutenable gauche, which was 8B when it was broken in 2009 and since then, most probably no repeat.

karoline sinnhuber has done Walk the Line 8A+ in Cresciano in just three sessions. Unfortunately she got a finger injury later working on Teamwork 8A. ”Should get a season ticket for Magnetic resonance imaging's. Not sure about how long I have to rest or do less, depending on what happened inside my finger, haha. I can‘t grab any holds with my right pointer. My capsule got a distorsion, the doc told me. Will take 6 weeks or more till I won‘t feel it anymore." (c) Andi Einwaller

"Walk the line" 8A+ // Karo Sinnhuber from Karoline Sinnhuber on Vimeo.

99boulders have updated their data in regards the hardest climbs in the world. In total, there are now 81 different climbers who have done 9a+ which can be compared with 128 boulderers who have done 8C. This suggest that the grade difference at the top level is around 2.5 grades. It should be mentioned that the history shows that in between 10 - 40 % of the new hardest climbs normally gets down graded. In 5-10 years, it is most likely that the 9a+ and 8C lists would probably mention 70 + 100 ascents. What also is interesting is the graph presenting the route progressive grade development and it is more or less the same grapph for bouldering especially if we look at the 8C+ level.

Stefano Ghisolfi reports on Insta that he has repeated Adam Ondra's Queen Line in Arco. (c) Sara Grippo "I was very close to falling in every part of the route, even when the hardest section was over, and I had to give my 100% to complete the climb. The route is slightly harder then the other 9b's I climbed, so it's the second hardest route for me just after Perfecto Mundo." In 2018, the Italian was runner up in the Lead World Cup. In the 8a ranking game he is #5. In 2019, he goes all in for the Olympics.