Pirmin Bertle has done two 8c+'s in Kochel, Paradis Artificial and the FA of Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang which was bolted and named by Toni Lamprect. "Nice direct line through the wall on tiny holds, no real rest points and very reachy moves. Very good rock and great conditions today. All the way straight up and slightly left at the last bolt. 8c+/9a." In the 8a ranking game, he is #3. Next up is to do Big Hammer 9a without the sika hold that change the crux grade from 7B+ to 8A+. More info in his blog.

Domen Skofic won both the qualification routes in Kranj and Japan continues their upwards trend. All their nine participants among the Top-24. Complete results

Adam Ondra reports on Insta that he has made the FA of Highline 9a+ after two days of bolting and two days of projecting. In total Adam has now done 62 routes 9a+ to 9c. The runner up is Chris Sharma and Alex Megos with 18 respectively 17 routes 9a+ and harder. Bernardo Gimenez "One of my best first ascents ever. Lower part is slightly overhanging featuring big moves on pockets, the crux is in the middle where wall turns into vertical (pictured), and then neverending technical difficulties all the way to the anchor in vertical or slightly slabby wall.>/a>

Many got their revenge from a poor result in Innsbruck and beside Jakob Schubert it was seven new names that qualified into the final tonight at 18.00. Both Italy and Japan got three into the final and Japan had also seven in Top-15 which was yet a new record for them. Among the female, Jain Kim topped in her best style which made the Norweigian coach, Reino Horak, say it was one of the most impressive and perfectly executed climbs he had seen during the last ten years. Austria did get three female to the final. Slovenia, who impressed again with eight female semifinalist, did get Mina Markovic beside Janja Garnbret to the final. Complete results

BBK Psicoblock starts today with some training sessions. On Saturday there will be quallies and at 20.00 finals. Jernej Kruder, Klemen Becan, Sasha Digulian and Matilda Söderlund are among the invited athletes. Instagram

The fifth stage of the Lead World Cup in 2018 takes place in Kranj this weekend. The semi will be live-streamed on Saturday 20.00 and the Finals on Sunday 18.00. Slovenia will participate with 16 athletes and Japan with 15 out of which nine male. As Alex Megos will not attend in Kranj, possibly due to the injury he got in Innsbruck and which made him just slowly climb the Speed route, it seems the overall title is a battle in between leading Jakob Schubert and Stefano Ghisolfi. Schubert's worse result is #4 and Ghisolfi's #5 in 2018. Anyhow, Domen Skofic and Romain Desgranges do still have good chances but the results need to go in their favor. Complete results Among the female, Janja Garnbret has won three events and Jessica Pilz one and as their worst result is #2, in practice nobody can catch them as Anak Verhoeven has said on Insta that due to an elbow injury, her competition season is over. In the end of October, the World Cup finishes with two events in China.

Giuliano Cameroni, "1 in the 8a ranking game, has published a video where he Webb, Ometz and Cotting make some hard sends in Cresciano including three FAs. "Cresciano is a very futuristic place, I think that some of the hard projects could be 9a or 9a+, who knows, but many of them are also more doable! I would like to climb there a lot, so we will see what this season will bring!"

Winter 2018 - New boulders in Cresciano from Giuliano Cameroni on Vimeo.

The Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires begins in two weeks and in less then six months the qualification for Tokyo begins. The count down have started and it is time to start training Speed seriously. Here is a prediction of 16 out of the male 20 that will make the cut. Narasaki, Harada, Schubert, Megos, Hojer, Ghisolfi, Schenk, Chon, M Mawem, Cornu, Kruder, Skofic, Lehmann, Ondra, Rubtsov and Bosi. What makes it interesting is that the max quota of two per country and with some few countries dominating, this actually opens up for lower ranked climbers, some who have not yet tried Speed and some youngsters that can get good progress during the last year. This is why four spots were left open.

Paul Robinson has done his 18th 8C, Delirium in Mt Evans, up at 3 700 meters, after five days of projecting. " The climb is 18 moves long out this big roof. Relief! too many mishaps on the end of this one. should have done this days ago but i just kept messing up the top! very happy that this mini epic is OVER! onward to the next one on the list :) 7 more to go! According, 99boulders Dai Koyamada and Daniel Woods have done 22 8C's which is most in the world. In total, Paul has recorded 909 boulders 8A and harder so on that list he is probably #1. Here is his latest video featuring New Zealand.

Fabrizio Peri, who recently did an 8c+, has done the FA of Camo 9a in Grotti after some 50 days. He bolted it five years ago and projecting has been on and off also due to injuries. "It was very emotional to open it." His first 9a, the military instructor, did when he was 42 years old, two years after he had done his first 8c. Fabrizio started climbing in 1979 and his progress came after stopping body building and loosing some weight.