Fanatic-Climbing reports that Julia Chanourdie, #4 in the Lead WC last year, has done La cabane au Canada 9a in Rawyl. In total, she just needed ten tries to do her thrid 9a which Adam Ondra onsighted in 2013. "This ascent was important for me. My international lead competition season is over and stopped early, so it was hard to fix new goals. Since my first day in Rawyl, pleasure to go climbing was back and a new goal with. I currently have no idea about the next route, but why not one step harder?”"

Isabelle Faus has done Quintessential 8B in Rocklands. © Chad Greedy In total, she has now done 47 boulders 8A+ to 8B+ and she is runner up in the female ranking game. "Psyched! Also I did Steak House 8A+ the other day! Not a crazy hard boulder but way outta my style so I’m pretty psyched about it... Gonna try and continue my theme of classic boulders still unclimbed by women."

Brooke Raboutou and Hidemasa Nishidi are the Youth A Lead World Champions. Hidemasa is the only one in Moscow who topped all four routes and he actually cruised the final route. Two weeks ago, the 15 year old was #11 in the Arco WC. Last year Brooke was #9 in a Lead WC and #10 in a Boulder WC. 1. Brooke Raboutou USA - Hidemasa Nishidi JPN 2. Futaba Ito JPN - Luka Potocar SLO 3. Sandra Lettner AUT - Katsura Konishi JPN Complete results (c) Eddie Fowke Interesting is that Alberto Gines, who was #7 in the last WC in Arco, was #5 and Laura Rogora was #6. The level in this category is extremely high and anybody in the final seems to also be able to be Top-15 also in the World Cup.

Meichi Narasaki took his second gold in Moscow in another great show where he skipped the second last hold and made a huge dyno to the last hold. Vita Lukan, bronze in boulder, won among the female with a nice and smooth style. 1. Vita Lukan SLO - Meichi Narasaki JPN 2. Nolwenn Arc FRA - Jakub Konecy CZE 3. Nina Arthaud FRA - Kai Harada JPN Complete results (c) Eddie Fowke The Juniors competed on the same route as the Youth A and interesting is that among the boys, the younger category had equal or better results among the Top-6 ranked.

As you probably know, based on the change in the IFSC bouldering rule, it is possibly to present the results as points. Last year I was part of a Working Group in IFSC invited to a meeting in Munich where I suggested one bonus point for a flash as well as increase to two zones. One reason for this is to make competitions more fair based on how good the athletes did climb. Two zones will also reduce the risk for going home empty handed with zero zones, aka 0 points as happened often for 10 % of the field like in Moscow YWC. Another way, or in a combination, to make the comps more fair and understandable for the spectators could be to give 0.1 point for touching (or controlling) the final hold with one hand. Alternatively, you can define the second zone as controlling the top with one hand. It is simply not fair that one climber who just reaches the zone gets as good score as, or possibly even better, compared to the one who climbs several moves longer and falls matching the final hold. It should be mentioned that such unfairness happens more often for the ones further down the list who do not make several tops.

Japan continues to dominate Bouldering in the Moscow Youth World Championship. In Youth B, they got two golds and two bronzes in great finals with almost perfect route setting were all boulders were done. Complete results (c) Eddie Fowke 1. Rei Kawamata 44 - Natsuki Tanii 34 (6) 2. Thomas Podolan 34 (4) - Naile Meignan 34 (8) 3. Nukui Ryoei 34 (5) - Hana Kudo 24 Rei, who also won last year, did his first 8B+ this summer. He has no trainer and his training is just made of my working and repeating the high class boulders at his gym.

In total, Japan did get three golds and four bronzes. The runner up is France with one medal in each color and a total of five finalists. The big sensation is that Austria has just have had one athlete in the final which can be compared with 12 for Japan. In 2017, Japan got nine youngsters on the podium and a total of ten finalists. The country that has dropped the most in 2018, is USA who got two golds and another two medals in 2017. This year, they just did get two in 6th position.

Stefano Ghisolfi has done his 17th 9a, Pure Dreaming in Arco, which Adam Ondra put up this spring. " It would be a hard 9a if Adam wouldn't find this kneebar after the first section of the route, so it is "just" 9a." (c) Sara Grippo In the Lead World Cup, the Italian is #2 after having won one event out of four. Currently he is training hard often in Innsbruck in order to prepare for the upcoming World Championship next month.