The guidebook covering all the sport climbing in the area, has been completely revised and updated since the previous edition came out in 2013. The development of new routes has been constantly going on. Therefore, new routes have been opened in existing sectors such as Grand Face and Nitshapa. In addition, 2 completely new sectors are now available in the book: Plein Sud and Papillon. In total, more than 200 new routes can be found in the guidebook compared to the previous version. This new guidebook is another great contribution to the constant development of sport climbing in one of the world's best sport climbing areas. Here you can buy it for Euro 26 also including a free download code for the Vertical-Life App. In total, 3 700 different topos are now available from Vertical-Life.

In most sports where you can set new standards, we see stagnation. This was also the case in climbing until 2015. For some reason, during the last years, we have since seen progress when it comes to achieved grades. In fact, 9a for male is not cutting edge any more and we do not report all. The only category where we do not see strong progress is onsight. Ondra is still extremely superior. The picture is drawn on free hand in order to show the trends, including further speculations showing 9b will be, for the Top-10, will be the new standard, in comparison to 9a+ in 2015.

Shawn Raboutou reports on Insta that he has done Creature from the Black Lagoon 8C+ in RMNP. (c) Daniel Woods, who made the FA in 2016. Shawn, who previously has done 8C's as well as a 9a+, is brother to the successful competition climber Brooke. Their parents Didier and Robin Erbesfield were both leading climbers during the 90'ies. "Well the process was pretty fun and what made the difference in the end was the conditions. It was my 4th day on it this year and I had tried it twice 2 years ago. Also I want to mention that I'm not sure about the 8C+ grade and think it could be 8C. I don't feel that I have enough experience though to make better judgement then the people who have done it before me."

Kim Marschner has published a high quality video including him doing Spray of Light 8C partly upside down.

2018 Rocklands 2.0 from Kim Marschner on Vimeo.

Jernej Kruder and Matilda Söderlund won the Psicoblock Master BBK in Bilbao in front of 6.500 spectators and 2.000 visits on the live streaming. The format was a duel challenge where Jernej was superior and a very fit Sasha Digulian couldn't beat Matilda on speed in the final. ©Oscar Carrascosa 1-Jernej Kruder - Matilda Söderlund 2-Nils Favre - Shasa Digiulian 3-Mikel Linacisoro - Julija Kruder

Adam Ondra reports on Insta that he has onsighted Spomin 8c in Paklenica. "Pitches are following: two 6c's or two 6a's, L3 8a+, L4 8c, L5 8b+, L6 8a+, L7 7a, L8 7b+, L9 4. The route is massive, steep and absolutely enjoyable to climb." Adam has previously onsighted 82 routes 8c to 9a and the runner up in this category could be Klemen Becan, Alex Megos and Piotr Schaab with around then.

Stefano Ghisolfi, #22 in WCH in Innsbruck, was the only one to top out the final in Kranj and increased the excitement in the duel in the World Cup with Jakob Schubert, who was runner up. #3 was Masahiro Higuchi. Interestingly, Stefano said that part of his preparation for the last two WCs will be to go to Spain working on a 9b. Among the female, Jain Kim climbed in surprisingly good control passing the highpoint of Janja Garnbret in both semi and final. Last year Jain was #2 overall and this year she has been #3 in the World Cups as well as in the WCH. Hannah Schubert, younger sister to Jakob, got her first WC podium. Complete results (c) Eddie Fowke

1. Jakob Schubert 415 - Janja Garnbret 460 2. Stefano Ghisolfi 386 - Jessica Pilz 395 3. Domen Skofic 256 - Jain Kim 230 4. Alex Megos 230 - Manon Hily 198 5. Romain Desgranges 213 - Anak Verhoeven 181 6. Sasha Lehmann 154 - Mina Markovic 167 Complete results If Jessica wins the last two events, Janja secures the victory overall by being runner up in one event and #3 in the other. If Jakob wins one of the two events and becomes #4 in the other, he gets the overall title even if Stefano is #1 and #2. In the National Team Ranking, Austria is #1 with 1 247 points followed by Slovenia with 1 134 points and Japan 1 052 points.