Cathy Wagner did her first 8a in 1994 being 29 years old. Including one 8a and Tzatziki 8a+ in Valbrona the last week, the 52 year old has now done 668 routes 8a to 8b. Almost one third of them, she has done second go. Time to raise the bar to 8b+?

Karolina Ośka has done her first 8c, Nie dla psa kiełbasa in Pochylec. ”I kept tabs on this route for a long time. Its character fits me perfectly and Pochylec is a rock located close to the Krakow where I live. However, trips, injuries, and other goals, for a long time pushed this project aside up to this year. The crux of the route is at the very end - a crimpy boulder where conditions are very important. Low as for June temperatures made the holds bigger and all elements finally fit :)”

Christof Rauch, has done his 119th boulder 8A and harder the last 12 months by doing Highlander 8C in Sustenpass. The FA was done by Martin Keller after 13 years of projecting it. "This was one of the craziest days I've ever had! At the beginning of the day I hurt my ankle pretty bad and couldn't jump down on my feet. Since I felt really strong and the drive home is quite long for me I decided to still give the Highlander a few tries. Seems like low expectations are the key for me on this powerendurance-monsters! After a huge fight I managed to nab the second ascent of this masterpiece by Martin Keller. About the grade, I am not really sure, probably 8B+/C?! At the end of the day I barely could walk back to the car and my foot was really swollen, later I went to the hospital and found out that I got lucky and my tendons are just strained quite bad."

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Adam Ondra is spending one month in Canada and started of by onsighting Existence Mundane 8c and Endless Summer 8b in Acephale. (c) Petr Pavlicek Then he will start his preparation for the World Championship in Innsbruck where he plans to also compete in Speed. In the autumn his big goal is to do an onsight try of Salathe wall in Yosemite. It is 35 pitches up to 8a and considered as the best route on El Capitan and normally it takes four days. Ondra hopes to do it in 12 hours. More info on Livellozero, who has translated a full length interview by the Czech Radio Radiozhurnal, where Adam also says. He does not like gyms with just colorful boulder problems as it reduce the variation. Innsbruck has the best wall in the world. He is currently working with a Ballet Master. "I think that my specific training for the speed climbing will be of five or ten percent of my total training volume for the Olympics."

Margo Hayes reports on Margo Hayes that she has done Joe Kinder's Waka Flocka Flame 8c+ in Rifle. (c) Joe Kinder Here is an 8a training interview after Margo had done La Rambla 9a+ last year, when she also did Biographie 9a+, so outdoors she is a contender for being the #1 female. She has made head lines since 2010 when she did a 7C+ boulder being 12 years old. In 2016, she was the Youth World Champion in both Lead and Boulder. Last year her best result was #6 in the Lead World Cup and she has said her goal is the Olympics, however, she is not in the start list for the first three Lead WCs in Europe this summer.

Jakub Konečný, the last two years Euro Youth Champion, reports on Insta that he has done Proces 9a in Visnove. "Then I wanted to make some pics of myself and 10mins after I accidentally made a second ascent of @adam.ondra ‘s “Procesor” (9a/a+), the extension of this thing. Today the Czech was #2 in the Euro Youth Cup in Uster. The next weekend he will compete in the World Cup in Villars where he last year was #13.

The Norwegian coach Reino Horak reports about a high class competition with good routes and nice spirit. Surprisingly, Eastern European countries dominated. Although Austria got one gold and a silver, with just one more Top-10 position, this most have been one of the weakest results for the country that has dominated the scene for many years. 99: Yannick Flohe GER - Michelle Hulliger SUI 01: Luka Potocar SLO - Laura Rogora ITA 03: Thomas Podolan AUT - Nika Potopova UKR Complete results

Vertical-Life July Challenge "Mark your sent routes and boulders with a "Zlag!" in the Vertical-Life app, collect 450 meters or 100 boulder problems and be rewarded. Lots of great prizes are waiting for you again. Of course also the ascents in your climbing gym count.

Piotr Schab has added an onsight of Punch on ire 8c in Cuenca to his scorecard with an interesting ethical comment. "Done the route, but the foothold broke moments before clipping the chain." Climbing is an interesting sport with no referees where we the community has developed the ethics and rules. There is often no black or white and instead there are often different shades of grey. 8a has published some practice and ethics based on a traffic light green-yellow-red system. I think Piotr's ascent is valid and support him for being open so everyone can have their own opinion. Sometimes the anchor is placed too high creating an unnatural crux of a route. In such case, you can gladly tick the route even if you could not clip the anchor but you should consider giving it a lower grade.