Laurent Vigouroux has done his eight 8c+, XXL in Calanques meaning he has reached a new All time High. One more 8c and he is #2 in the 40+ ranking game. "I have spent 12 winter seasons on it (probably more than 120 days and more than 450 tries) to complete it! I have fallen at the very last section around 18 times. In fact, there is a mantle which is not so hard (7b route) after the crux section but there is no rest and it asks a good resistance. I had to train differently and change my climbing style to be able to send it. For me, it was more a mental battle for not giving up and stay motivated, for staying strong enough all along these years. Happy to do it 7 days before my 40th birthday. In twelve years my "climbing" has evolved a lot. I have more experience, more technics and more mental resources. I'm also better understanding the climbing sport in its scientific components. I'm researcher in Faculty of Sport Sciences in Marseille and part of my work addresses to climbing sciences. Surprisingly, I'm also feeling in better physical shape than 12 years ago. I have more power, more resistance even if I expected the contrary! The key point for succeeding in this route was to re-began to climb indoor. In fact since I'm twenty, I climb 90% outdoor. But 3 years ago with the opening of the indoor gym "mur de Luminy" just next to my office, I re-began to climb indoor on more modern routes. That gave me first a push for physical training but it learned me to fight more when your are completely pumped. This way, I understood how to manage this final section in spite of muscle fatigue."

USA Climbing explains that the reason for no USA climbers are competing in the Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires is that they had failed to, in time, be a recognized member of their USOC. In the Combined Youth World Championship 2017, the qualifying event, Ashima Shiraishi and Brooke Raboutou were #2 and #3. From Italy, Giorgia Tesia qualified by winning the Combined European Championship (CEC) and Pietro Biagini qualified twice including being #2 in the CEC. Bagni might not be so famous yet but with a personal Speed record of 7.36 and #45 in the Lead WCH in Innsbruck, he would have had chances to actually make podium and this also goes for Georgia. From the Youth World Championship, were the Top-15 qualified, the lowest ranked male who made it to Buenos Aires was #24 and the lowest ranked female was #64.

Climb Kalymnos has presented a great retrospective of the seven guidebooks that has been published since the first in 2000 with just 200 routes. The 7th edition includes 3 400 routes which is 700 more than the in the 6th edition. Buy it for Euro 45 including a free digital code. "A big part of the proceeds goes back into maintenance and new routing. Since 2015, the topo is also available through the Vertical-Life App. "If you don’t want the print version of the guidebook, the app is also available as a separate purchase. If you are a first-time app buyer it costs €18; if you have already bought the 2015/16 print edition and downloaded that app version, you can download just the updates for €9." “It’s funny to say, but it [the Kalymnos guidebook] may seriously be the best guidebook in the world. Thank you for all the hard work in new routing and maintenance!” – Alex Honnold

Almost perfect route setting in the female qualification and no false starts created a great first day in Buenos Aires. Surprisingly, favorite Laura Rogora who was #10 in Lead in the WCH in Innsbruck and who won the Boulder Youth WCH is out. Complete results (c) Eddie Fowke - Vita Lukan from Slovenia was runner up behind Sandra Lettner from Austria.

Slovenia has for many years been one of the leading competition climbing nations in the world. This is nothing but remarkable as they only have 2 million inhabitants and also that they have few big climbing gyms. At the same time as the indoor scene is booming, Slovenia has not been so much part of it and instead their success comes based on many small rather old-school gyms. Martina Cufar won the Lead World Championship in 2001 and since, their Lead female team has been more or less #1 in the world for 17 years straight. During the latest years also, especially their male Boulderers, have showed amazing progress. In the National Team ranking 2018, Slovenia was #2 in Boulder and they are also currently #2 in Lead. Is there anybody who could come up with an explanation who a relatively, to western Europe, poor country with 2 million inhabitants with few no big modern indoor climbing facilities could be so successful? Is old-school gyms peppered with holds better in comparison to less (colorful) holds in the modern gyms? We know that some train extremely structured mainly doing endurance circles on super small walls. At the same time, they have Jernej Kruder, who won the Boulder WC 2018 but mainly climbs long routes outdoors. Instead, the most striking thing talking to several athletes and coaches during the last 15 years, is how young they start and the number of climbing hours they put in. Most schools actually have a small wall and most of the best did actually start before they were eight years old. Already being 13 years old, it is quite normal for the best to do several competitions and climb 15-20 hours a week out of which a big portion outdoors. Slovenia is also known for having a great team spirit. Finally, climbing has a very high sport status in Slovenia. (c) Luka Fonda

Jan hojer has done the third ascent of Chris Sharma's Es Pontas on Mallorca from 2006. Chris did not grade it but after some years he said 9b was possible when this grade was put forward. Jernej Kruder did the first repeat and he calls it 9b. "The grade is symbolic!" Hojer took the bronze in the Combined WCH in Innsbruck last month. In 2016, he worked Es Pontas together with Jernej for a month. Hojer Insta: "Thanks @chris_sharma ! You sure know how I feel right now ! Thanks so much for putting up this route! Your vision is the only reason I got to experience all of this!"

Moritz Welt has done his second 9a the last month, The Essential in Frankenjura. "A couple of sessions about two years ago, three more tries this autumn! Just perfect!" (c) Manuel Welt At least equally impressive is his 46 boulders 8A to 8B+ and 71 routes 8a+ to 9a, during the last hear. In the Combined Ranking game, the 17 year old German is #3 after Adam Ondra and Daniel Woods.

In 2004, Chris Sharma put up Practice of the wild in Magic Wood and even if he did not grade it, 8C has become the official grade. It took four years until the stunning supersteep and long line got repeated and another three for the third ascent. Then it quickly became one of the most repeated 8C's in the world and in 2016, Gabri Moroni was the first, as he has been for more routes and boulder, to give it a personal downgrade. Including three more such personal suggestions and most others say it is "soft" as well as most do very quickly, 8B+ seems to be more correct based as of the 2018 standards and training possibilities. In 2004, supersteep and very long boulders were rare both indoors and outdoors. When the boulderers, with poor such training facilities, tried it I bet it felt like a hard 8C. Even in the 8a yearbook of 2008, Björn Pohl picked it out as one of the Top-10 hardest boulders on the planet. As of today, with much more focus and possibilities to work on such supersteep and long boulders, the community seems to think it is easier in comparison to more vertical 8C'. In other words, Sharma was right in 2004 but new and improved training facilities have probably grade wise made him wrong as of 2018. 8a Grade Article from 2008 explaining it in theory. "Many years ago, climbing activities took place on vertical trad routes giving climbers certain abilities to succeed and grade these routes. Today, on the opposite, most training occurs in steep indoor gyms giving other prevailing skills for climbers. This has changed the community's time/success ratio on different type of route/boulders, and grades have to be changed. In practice this mean that some steep old routes should be in the risk-zone of being downgraded." The good part of such grade changes, due to training or population changes etc, is that grades loose their correctness and thus importance. It just might be that with more smaller and taller climbers getting into the community, confirmed benchmark 9a's or 7A might just need to change to correspond better to the up-to-date community perception.

Loic Zehani has done his tenth 9a with the FA of Les mollahs du mur in Orgon which was bolted by Olivier Bert. "This winter I would love to try "Le Bombé Bleu" at Buoux (maybe 9b) and mythical project for sure. Last year I did almost all the moves (just the first one where I could not do the land a two finger pocket properly after a mega jump. It's a fantastic line in a fantastic place bu it's very dangerous for the fingers." LBB was bolted by Marc Menestrel in 1991. Many of the top climbers like Ben Moon, Stefan Glowacz, Chris Sharma, Fred Rouhling and Iker Pou have tried it saying it is indeed super beautiful. Noteworthy is that in 1993, a french magazine reported it to have been done and graded 9a but today nobody believes this to be true.

James Webb made the FA of La Rustica in 2013 calling it a hard 8B+. Nalle Hukkataival thinks that it merits 8C and have also, instead of the original crouched start, made a full SDS to the extraordinary line. "Well safe to say it’s 8C as shit and also likely the hardest boulder problem in Switzerland. And exceptionally rad."

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Ett inlägg delat av Nalle Hukkataival (@nalle_hukkataival) 4 Okt 2018 kl. 12:39 PDT