Cathy Wagner has done her 149th 8a+, Le monde perdu in Destel. "An exceptional route defined by a very physical endurance effort (for me anyway) as you climb on the edge of a prow-like overhang. Took me 2 days to get the right beta and was totally wasted afterwards! Today, I managed to send it straight away after warming-up, thanks to the perfect conditions and Seb cheering me. Getting fit again after a bad cold which lasted 3 weeks feels good! In total the 53 year old has done 703 routes 8a to 8b during the last 25 years. Interestingly, like one third she has done second go. Possibly it is time to raise the bar to 8b+ in 2019?

IFSC Lead semis and finals are run in onsight format. This means that the athletes are allowed to look at the routes for five minutes, even with binoculars. Further more they are allowed to cooperate and discuss and sometimes they draw sketches in the iso. In practice, also including the often straight forward route setting, most athletes share the same sequences often making the semis quite boring, like they were flashing or even redpointing big parts of the route. In IFSC bouldering semis, the athletes get much less possibility to check the boulders and they are now allowed to cooperate. The key is often finding the right beta but nevertheless this format is considered flash. In Lead comps, the definition of flash is totally the opposite. The athletes are provided with a beta video and they can sit and look at each other climbing. Further more, they can talk even to the guys having tried the climb. It must be quite confusing especially for the non-climbers why IFSC commentators say bouldering semis are run in flash format as it clearly is a more pure onsight, in comparsion to the Lead onsight format. It should be mentioned that in the IFSC rules, they never define whether bouldering is run in flash or onsight format. In other words, it is the commentators and climbers who confusingly call it flash.

Max Bertone, little brother to Oriane, starts to catch up to her level. During two weeks, the 11 year old has done 13 boulders 7C to 8A+, ouct of which second go of Proa 7C+ and Light Saber 8A+ in less than ten tries sticks out. As a matter of a fact, the latter was put up by Dave Graham as an 8B but it has been recorded as a soft 8A. Both are captured in this video.

The biggest challenge you can do in climbing is to try to onsight it, i.e. having no beta of how to execute the moves. This means also quite moderate climbs can turn into great test-pieces. Also Adam Ondra started off with a focus on onsight and this is what I always have told the eager parents to prodigy kids. Just let them climb as many routes and boulders as possible onsight. This will reduce the grade hysteria and instead focus on solving puzzles. I mean, why should you as a parent try to guide them where to put the foot or in which order they should take the hand holds, when you do not have a clue anyhow. Her are some further comments of Brandon Sullivan, after reading the avove draft article. He is a father of three sons 5, 7 and Keegan 9, who just came back from a Hueco Trip. "By the end of the trip, Keegan had onsighted dozens of routes, including many classics. His proudest onsights were Big Iron on His Hip V7 and Hector in a Blender V7. He nearly flashed Better Eat Your Wheaties V9. He was confused on some of the moves and talked them out prior to his first attempt. After he worked his way through the crux, he hit a “rest” crimp and asked for the next move. I didn’t think he could span to the next decent hold so I suggested an intermediate. He went for the smaller hold and fell. Turns out, he could reach the better hold and sent next go. Maybe if dad didn’t spray he would have achieved the flash! As a parent of budding youth climbers, I fully endorse focusing on onsights. It opens the entire guidebook to challenges regardless of grade, and adds a lot of fun to a day outdoors. It’s also a great method for practicing for indoor competitions, and takes the pressure off of constantly projecting at the top of one’s limits."

Alex Puccio, who won the only WC she did 2018, has decided to not go for Tokyo 2020. As most of her competitors will also train Speed and Lead, getting worse in Bouldering, there is a golden opportunity to win both the World Cup and the WCH, everyone focusing on the Olympics the two coming years.

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Long post! Over the past 5-6 months I have been consistently thinking about the direction I want to take in my climbing career and where my heart truly lies. The decision I was faced with is to try or not to try for the Olympics. Mentally this has been very though for me, going back and forth with my thoughts. At first I said “YES, I want to try!” BUT then after some time I kept feeling like I maybe didn’t want to go down that road. I started to realize that I wanted to push for the Olympics because it sounded pretty cool and that I had always done competitions so I might as well. But then I stared to listen to my heart and mind a bit more and realized that I wasn’t really into training for Speed and Lead. I still love competing, BUT I also LOVE climbing outside! I truly believe that if I was going to make the push for the Olympics then starting now I wouldn’t be able to climb outside that much this year, maybe a few days here and there. And then if you made the Olympic Team it would be another 6 months on top of that. This is because you would have to train your a** off for all 3 disciplines. If the Olympic format was individual disciplines then I would have loved to try for it! I strongly believe that the main reason I have had such a long competition career and still going is because for the past 4 years I mainly climb outside and a couple weeks before a comp I’ll go in the gym to practice some comp style boulders. It has been working for me physically and most importantly MENTALLY! :) I’m just about 30 years old and I don’t feel like taking up another discipline, speed, and giving up my LOVE for climbing outside for such a long time. Sure, if someone handed me a ticket to the Olympics I would LOVE to go and it would be so much fun I bet, but that’s not how it works. Lol

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Paul Robinson, who has done 924 boulders 8A and harder, out of which a couple hundreds FA, has published a great video of his FA of Karoshi 8C in Hueco Tanks. "Karoshi was a line that I found with my good buddy Keith. We were going over to see the newly reopened new map of hell. When we got there, we were blown away by this line that went straight out of the center. It looked possible and I went to working trying to figure out the moves. I spent multiple days that trip on the line but with the warm temps, I left Hueco for the season. I came back to Hueco in December of 2018 with one objective, to climb this boulder! I trained hard before the trip and felt stronger on the project than on it the season before! I was psyched and after a few more days of working it, I was able to make the first ascent of this crimpy and powerful test piece! I cannot wait for others to try this one!"

Oriane Bertone has done another three hard boulders in Rocklands; Sassy squash 8A, The arch 8A+and The Master Key in Rocklands. "Fantastic hidden boulder ! One hard move. I found my beta at the third session and solve this problem. Very happy for this ascent! In total, the 13 year old has now done 39 boulders 8A to 8B+, out of which 19 the last 12 months and she is #2 in the 8a ranking game. One more 8B, and she takes over the crown from Isabelle Faus.

Isabelle Faus has done her 17th 8B, The Wheel of Fortune in Clear Creek Canyon and she is #1 in the 8a ranking game. In total, she has now done 107 boulders 8A to 8B+. Next project is Memory is Parallax 8B+. "Started trying last year. Two of the moves took me like ten sessions to be able to do... super outta my style... one huge move and another really dynamic pop. Coming of an injury I was kinda using this boulder as a way to learn how to do big moves. Last year after a lot of effort I eventually made my way to the last move... and then we flew to Swiss the next day. This year I got back to my high point quickly and fell there a bunch. Then yesterday I found slightly better beta for this move and did it pretty quick after that. Really satisfying to do moves easily that last year seemed crazy... next is the top section and try and link em."