Pirmin Bertle has made the FA of Focus Pocus 9a+ in Jansegg and you have the full story here. "The hardest single move of this first seven-moves-boulder is an extremely extended stretch out to a miniscule one finger pocket. It you don’t hit it well, you won’t hold it. If you are smaller than 1,80m you won’t reach out to the foot holds and when you don’t have my finger strength – I have to admit that my static power isn’t the worst neither – you won’t move at all in the whole sequence. And if you have thicker fingers than me – what should be the case for most of the very strongly trained high end climbers – you won’t even enter into this mono." Pirmin has previoulsy done 20 routes 9a and harder out of which 14 FA, including two 9b'sand two 9a+'s.

R & I reports that Alex Honnold and Tommy Caldwell has set a new Speed record of the 900 meters long The Nose in Yosemite, 2.01.50. Last week they did it in 2.10.15 so probably they will try to go sub 2 hours next.

Japan dominated the male qualification in Japan with six guys in Top-12 and a total of seven into the semifinal. Further down the list, they had 13 among Top-32. Complete results

France totally dominated the European Youth Cup in Bouldering in Delft with three golds and another four medals. Interesting is that Sandra Lettner, who was #4 in the only World Cup she has done this year, was also fourth among the ones born 01. 99: Peter Ivanov BUL - Mattea Pötzi AUT 01: Matteo Baschieri ITA - Favy Cohaut FRA 03: Paul Jenft FRA - Naile Meignan FRA

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Gabri Moroni and Akiyo Noguchi won the World Cup in Japan after also having won the semifinal. Overall the boulders were a bit too hard with three female and two male not doing one single boulder. Luckily both the male and female comp finished with Gabri and Akiyo topping out with flashes. 1. Gabri Moroni ITA 24 - Akiyo Noguchi JPN 33:5 2. Tomoa Narasaki JPN 13:1 - Miho Nonaka JPN 33:6 3. Rei Sugimoto JPN 13:4 - Ekatarina Kipriianova Rus 22 Complete results Interesting is that Gabri Moroni was #7 in his Boulder World Cup debut in 2004. Later the same year he got the bronze in the European Championship being just 16 years old. Between 2007 and 2009, he had his most successful years getting a silver in each year, being #6, 4 and 3 overall. Later during 25 World Cups and Championships he was at best #6 until 2017. With two 9a+' and one 8C, the Italian is one of the best sport climber during the last 15 years.

1. Jernej Kruder 345 - Akiyo Noguchi 430 2. Tomoa Narasaki 331 - Miho Nonaka 420 3. Alexsei Rubtsov 259 - Fanny Gibert 250 4. Rei Sugimoto 222 - Stasa Gejo 222 5. Kokoro Fujii 217 - Katja Kadic Complete results National Team Ranking 1. Japan 1 882 2. Slovenia 999 3. France 660 4. Austria 523 5. Russia 506

peter dawson has done Rainshadow 9a in Malhalm. In the 8a Combined 8a ranking game, the 19 year old is #10. "My first 9a. A bouldery crux after Raindogs then a 8a+ power endurance fest."

Christof Rauch, the full time worker who has done 118 boulders 8A and harder the last year, has done Viva La Evolution in Flirsch giving it a personal grade of 8B+. (c) Toby Saxton ”Second ascent of this mystical Bernd Zangerl problem from 2002. Awesome boulder with some small and pretty sharp crimps. Getting to the boulder is quite a mission but the line, the amazing location and the view makes it worth it. Already came really close last year but afterwards I found out that I tried it from a wrong start, the real start is more on the left. Originally it was graded 8C but I think 8B+ fits better.