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.

Jorg Verhoeven has published the Olympic format and the qualification procedure which already has been discussed on 8a. It has been confirmed with IFSC that Japan can only participate with max two athletes even if they have a host selection. Here are two issues that should be mentioned. As max one Japanese will be able to qualify from the Combined WCH 2019, possibly it will be good enough to be Top-10 to get the Olympic ticket for the non-Japaneses. During the special qualifying event, it might be that among the male, it is likely that due to the country quota and the strong Japanese team, 15 - 20 (all) will make it through to Tokyo. In theory you could end up in a case where even the #21 in the Combined WC 2019 gets an automatic ticket to the Olympics, i.e: 7 from WCH + 8 quota limitations. This means only five from the special event can be selected even if there are six available spots. Further more, it just might be that it is good enough to be Top-10 in both Europe and Asia Champ to get the Olympic ticket. It should be noted that the 15 minutes break in between each discipline reported is not correct. In the finals it is a minimum of 15 minutes and in the qually it is a minimum of 30 min before the Bouldering and 120 min before the Lead.

Isabelle and Volker Schöffl, have written an article about injury prevention. They are both active climbers and medical doctors. Both have done first ascents up to french 8b, many of them in Laos and Thailand.They are team physicians to the German Climbing team and Volker is a member of the MedCom IFSC and author of „One move too many“. They have done 100+ scientific papers on climbing medicine and are teaching world wide on this topic. They are right now working for an aid organization as doctors in Laos where they also were among the pioneers for Thakhek. Further information: sportmedicine.rocks Specifically they have mentioned some risks for kids and young teenagers - Neglect campus board - No additional weight - Reduce finger intensive bouldering - Avoidance of constant crimping Full article about injury prevention.

Stasa Gejo won the qualification and was the only one to top all five problems and she flashed them all. In the semifinal, she was #13 with zero tops. "Not a good thing to start last... I couln't show my best today mostly because of external conditions and this is not complaining, this is a fact." Beside that negative surprise, all the big names made it through except Petra Klinger. Sandra Lettner, 16, who won the Combined Youth WCH last year is also in the final. Among the male, a similar situation for Nathaniel Coleman who did go form #1 in the qually to #17 in the semifinal. A big surprise was also Jan Hojer as #18. Beside that, all the big names made it to the final including also Tomoaki Takata. In total, Japan had five guys Top-10 but just two in the final. With the old rule, Japan would have had four finalists. All eight boulders was topped out although two boulders was good enough for the male and just one boulder for the female. Complete results ( c) Eddie Fowke, The Circuit Climbing capturing Jernej Kruder who is the the final 18.30. Noteworthy is that USA sent a big team of eight climbers and they did just get two semis who both ended #17. 1. Akiyo Noguchi - Jakob Schubert 2. Janja Garnbret - Tomoa Narasaki 3. Shauna Coxsey - Manu Cornu 4. Miho Nonaka - Tomoaki Takata 5. Sandra Lettner - Jongwon Chon 6. Fanny Gibert - Jernej Kruder & Alexey Rubtso

Jernej Kruder started first of seven finalists and set the bar on extraordinary boulder which all where topped. Boulder two, which he did, including a dynamic quintupleside ways might be one of the most spectacular IFSC boulder as it later was done static as well with a triple double dyno. The Slovenian multi-discipline climber, who prepared himself last weekend by projecting a 9a, is known for his topping celebration face which we got to see often. (c) Eddie Fowke Among the female, the boulders were a little bit to easy as we saw three girls topping out all four boulders with Miho Nonaka winning topping out in only five attempts. 1. Miho Nonaka JPN 44 (5) - Jernej Kruder SLO 34 2. Janja Garnbret SLO 44 (7) - Tomoa Narasaki JPN 24 (3) 3. Akiyo Noguchi JPN 44 (9) - Alexei Rubtsov RUS 24 (5) 4. Sandra Lettner AUT 34 - Jakob Schubert AUT 23 5. Fanny Gibert FRA (33) - Tomoaki Takata JPN 13 6. Shauna Coxsey GBR -(23) Jongwon Chon KOR 7. Manu Cornu FRA Complete results

Alexander Feichter has made the FA of Frozen Water 8C in Gais which is a 35+ moves link up of an 8B+ roof into an 8A. In 2016, he put another 8C in Gais which is unrepeated. "The Frozen Water line maintains a very strong climbing steal. In addition to the maximum power emphasized passages, an enormous power endurance requirement is added. In short, you will not be able to relax on the entire Boulder. The higher the reward at the end! Overjoyed, I reached the Top with inflated arms."

In Group 1, there were 17 male that topped out all five boulders out of which seven did not make it to the semifinal. In Group 2, everyone ranked from #7 to 38 did just top two the the first two boulders. As expected, Japan dominated with seven in the Top-20 semifinal and ten among the Top-23. Complete results How odd as it might seem, nevertheless, there were no sensational results beside possibly that the winners of the groups were not the most famous once; Roland Rugens, Nathaniel Coleman, Mickael Mawem, Yuji Fujiwaki. The semifinal is live streamed tomorrow starting at 11.00 and you will fine it here on 8a.

Loic Zehani has done his first 9a+, Shashidananda in Orgon which took him ten days. First he recorded it as a "hard" 9a, check video, as this was what Gérôme Pouvreau indicated as FA in 2009. After Loic's ascent Gérôme has said he thinks it is 9a+. "I'm so happy to sent this route because I have passed under it for several years without having neither the level nor the courage to try it! I always think it's 9a+, like a lot of climbers, but with my lake of experience I wanted to be affirmative."

Zander Waller has on his seventh try done his second 8c+, Southern Smoke in Red River Gorge. The day before he flashed Omaha Beach giving it a personal 8b grade. "Well, I wasn't quite sure I would send Southern Smoke as I wasn't getting very close on it, but the first time I stuck the last move of the crux from the ground, I managed to take it to the top. In fact, Connor did it second try; it was one of the most impressive things I have ever seen! (That truly unique story will be followed up). As for Omaha Beach, my friend found some new beta on the beach crux section, and it ended up feeling much easier than a majority of the 8b's I have done."