Jernej Kruder, #2 in the WCH in 2014 and who has been an active competition climbers for 15 years, won his first World Cup in Meiringen. Interesting is that the Slovenian is mainly climbing and training outdoors doing all disciplines from DWS, trad and Big Walls and that goes also for his WC preparation. As a matter of a fact, the 27 year old should be a contender to be the best multi-discipline climber in the world, together with Adam Ondra, as of today. And he is going for the Olympics. "No preparations yet. Too soon for that :)" His Insta from 2018 confirms that he likes all types of climbing including bolting up new routes. The week before Meiringen he had two projecting days on a 9a, see the picture by krimp.si. The last months he has posted from several comps, 8b+ trad, 8b+ MP and 8B boulder. It was all about the weather, so it's hard to say how many days outdoor exactly. There were also some selection trainings and competitions too. But for sure it was more than 50% outdoors."

The document published below did include some info that was not correct when it comes to the Time in between the disciplines in the Olympics. Here are the official 2018 rules which we also have confirmed with IFSC. "The Qualification round of the Combined event shall be organised such that: 15.1.5.1 Each competitor shall have a minimum [30] minutes recovery period between their last attempt in the Speed competition and the start of their attempts in the Boulder competition following; and 15.1.5.2 Each competitor shall have a minimum [120] minutes recovery period between their last attempt in the Boulder competition and the start of their attempt in the Lead competition following. where each of the Qualification and Final rounds will combine competitions in the Speed discipline, the Boulder discipline and Lead discipline in that order." 15.1.6 The Final round of the Combined event shall be organised such that: 15.1.6.1 Each competitor shall have a minimum [15] minutes recovery period between their last attempt in the Speed competition and the start of their attempts in the Boulder competition following; and 15.1.6.2 Each competitor shall have a minimum [15] minutes recovery period between their last attempt in the Boulder competition and the start of their attempt in the Lead competition following. When it comes to starting order, the highest ranked competitor should start last in all three disciplines. In the finals, the highest ranked, after each discipline, should start last. In practice this means that there could be an advantage to qualify to the Olympics as #20 as this means you will start first with fresh holds in Bouldering and the contrary applies for the #1 qualified. The starting order is based on the Seeding, i.e. who qualify first and in which position. During the final, the ranking in bouldering might be most important as a better result will give you longer resting time before Lead. IFSC has stipulated a min of 15 min rest in between disciplines, and if so, the highest ranked climber could remain with instead 40 - 60 min rest. Another consequence is that a poor result in Speed during the final might not be so bad as this means, you will save more energy skipping two Speed runs, starting first in Bouldering and getting longer rest before Lead. Imagine Adam Ondra, could be last in Speed, starting first in Bouldering which he wins, will give him the longest rest before Lead. It should be mentioned that we have commented the min 15 minutes rule with IFSC and they have answered that it is just a minimum and that there probably will be longer time in between the disciplines during the final. One problem to face is also when to do the route reading which in itself is like a 10 min procedure. It will be rather complicated to do all route reading before starting the Speed event. On the other hand, it is probably the broadcaster who will decide what type of interval in between the disciplines is best for the million television audience.

Innsbruck 2018 has published an interesting Meiringen analyses talking about technical skill adapting to different types of challenges, carried out by Udo Neuman. As the route setters will be the same in the WCH in Innsbruck 2018, important lessons have to be learnt. Udo also points out the problem with the conditions deteriorating which in practice means that the better result you had in the semi, the worse friction you will get in the final. On the first problem, that can be seen in the picture, the first three guys did it at the same time the four last guys, and higher ranked in the semi, failed. "Once someone has slipped off a foothold twice, the risk of slipping again increases dramatically. This also had a big influence on the result in Meiringen." Video of last man out, Jakob Schubert, slipping from that big yellow hold. Udo also says, "It can only be hoped that a more level playing field will be made available in the future.". IFSC comp stats since 2007, confirms that the semi winner seldom actually wins the final and this is especially true for the WCHs. Other reasons for this is of course, the increased pressure starting last out, having heard that other guys topped and also that plastic holds and the whole arena get slightly heated up from the first to the last climber.

Patrick Matros, a professor for sport and educational science and one of of Alex Megos mentors, shares his view on training, in regards Olympics and that the youngsters are at risk. The 44 year old has learnt the hard way and has now a more holistic playful climbing lifestyle approach. Read more and follow him and his counterpart Dicki Korb through, Gimmekraft, Instagram and Facebook. "I started climbing 25 years ago and we all had this strange training approach, copied from other sport disciplines: In winter season we did a lot of pull-ups, front-lever and campus-boarding first phase was more for hypertrophy and after that we went for maximum power. It was normal, that it took minimum one month to get used to rockclimbing again when outdoor season started. Nowadays I am happy to finish this stage injury free and improved with my knowledge of training in climbing. One risk with the Olympics is that we will see climbers training much more intense and structured at early age and this will have a huge impact on kids and youngsters approach to sportclimbing and bouldering. In the last years I recognize more and more that kids are playing less, as the coaches and parents put more pressure on them in early years. Instead they focus way too much on short term and performance oriented goals like gaining strength with intensive bouldering on tiny holds or making too much strength exercises. Often it is all about climb harder and harder as fast as possible. I have a 6 year old daughter and it breaks my heart when I see coaches and parents pushing young kids too much and I am sure we will see more injuries e.g. an increase in epiphyseal (growth plate) injuries. Our approach is different: We have actually had the opposite focus with a more holistic, long time and task oriented approach when it comes to training Alex Megos. The fun to make climbing moves and do the sport is the core! This means that only the intrinsic part of motivation with a playful approach is able to give you the energy for a long (life) time motivation. And which sport fits better to this idea than climbing? You have so much variations and disciplines, you can climb outdoor and indoor and you can travel around the world to fantastic places! Should you sacrifice a lot of that just for saying that your son or daughter or athlete was able to get some good comp results and then got injured or dropped out because of monotonously training regimes? I think competition can be nice and it can enrich a climbing career, but especially with kids and young adults it is not all around focusing just on the next comp result and it should never be! Of course, some kids and youngsters like to compete and have fun doing it and it is okay for them to have performance oriented goals beside the task oriented ones. But as parents or a trainer you should never forget, that climbing is more than that: it is a lifestyle and a great way to learn about life and have adventures in beautiful areas of the planet. So don’t put too much extrinsic pressure on them. And be careful, as this often happens in a very subtle way!"

Niklas Held, working as a route setter, has published a video analyses from the WC in Meiringen. Interesting is his comments in regards that Jernej Kruder, with his big celebration of boulder #1, heated up the spectators and sending the message, including putting more pressure, to his opponents. (c) Eddie Fowke It should be mentioned that Jernej is known for his big celebration and happy face and it comes just natural for him. However, for others who just quietly walks off the stage after sending, such celebration could be a clever move as Niklas points out. You could imagine that sitting in the isolation listening to the crowd go wild will create some extra pressure. Possibly this could beside the friction also partly explain why the #6 ranked in the semifinal, so often get much better results in the final.

In October 2017, Brad Gobright and Jim Reynolds set a new speed record on the 900 meters the Nose at 2.19.44, on their eleventh attempt . Looking at the great video you can see that they almost simu climbed everything and that they in reality did climb probably more like 1 100 meters due to all traverses etc. The FA in 1958 took 45 days and nowadays, normally 3-4 days is used to reach the summit.

Two Nineteen Forty Four from Tristan Greszko on Vimeo.

Jan De Smit has done his first 8B+ Mécanique élémentaire in Fontainebleau. It should be noted that last year was his best, being 42 years old, doing two 8B's. "Even after thirty years of climbing I am still learning. Climbing hard over forty is difficult but not impossible, if you are mindful in your training/climbing then age does not have to be a limiting factor. After a complete biceps rupture last year I thought I might have to lower my expectations but with good surgery and smart training I can now do everything like before. Feeling proud to have done one of the best lines in Font."

121 male and 104 female are registered to compete in the Boulder World Cup in Moscow this weekend, which can be compared with 60 respectively 37 participated in their last WC in 2010. The increased number of competitors is great for our sport at the same time in creates problems like very long isolation and also difficulties to separate the athletes in the qualifications. In Meiringen, with superb semis and finales, several athletes had to wait 7+ hours in the Iso in the qualification. Further more, 32 male out of 54 in Group 1 did score 2 boulders and in the other group, 17 did top all five boulders. One solution could be to reduce the number of athletes for each country at the same time to increase the number of extra athletes per country based on World Cup points etc. Another solution is to add one zone which would reduce ties and which would make it possible to make the boulders slightly harder if needed.