Covered in the great interview with Adam Ondra is Silence 9c which took 200 tries, the 9a+ and the Olympics. In 2019, he will do all Lead and Bouldering WCs and in regards Speed it is an Olympic training sacrifice gamble. "How much training you should sacrifice into Speed and how much impact it will have on Bouldering and Lead... all of us who want to go to for the Olympics is kind of gambling on that.

8a wants to support the International Women's Day. Often podium prizes are not equal, or a route is downgraded when a woman does it, putting on doubt hard ascents just for the only reason of be a woman. Climbing has the same value if you're a man or a woman, a boy or a girl. We would also like to see more female bolters as well as bolting being more adjusted to girls and female height. (c) Eddie Fowke - The Circuit Climbing On the competition scene, female is getting closer to male performance and Janja Garnbret, on the picture, has often climbed as high as the best male during training. When it comes to junior training and competitions, girls often outnumber the boys. In bouldering, Ashima Shiraishi did an 8C when she was 14 years old which no boys have done yet. Last year, Angie Eiter ldid a 9b meaning only two male have climbed a harder graded route. When it comes to gender performance equality, this means that climbing is a unique sport and, even so, probably we have just seen the beginning of the climbing Girl Power!

Although not official, the IFSC qualification system document for Tokyo 2020 has been found on internet. A total of 20 male and 20 female will participate and 1 + 1 is guaranteed the Host Nation and 1 + 1 Tripartite Commission. There is also a maximum of 2 athletes per nation. "The qualification events are listed in hierarchical order of qualification." 6 - Top ranked on the Combined World Champion in Tokyo 2019 1 - Overall World Cup Winner (OWC) 2019 6 - Qualifying event where Top-20 from OWC 2019 will participate 5 - Continental Championship 2020 A. As soon as one country gets two spots (like from WCH 2019), that countries quota is full and the remaining qualifications have no impact for that country. B. During the Continental Championship for Europe and Asia, it is likely that you do not have to qualify to the Top-6 final to make it through if you are not from; Japan, Austria, France, Italy, Slovenia or Germany. C: It is not clear if Host and Tripartite Places go beyond max 2 + 2 per country. D: Further comments in the right column.

Based on the IFSC 2020 Olympic qualification system one might say that there is very little use for the athletes to actually focus on Speed, beside technical training, until the end of 2019. 1. Six spots have been allocated to the Combined World Championship in 2019, i.e. it is the qualification that will decide. Based on the multiplication format, good results in all three discipline are poor in comparison to an uneven result: 1 * 10 * 50 = 500 wins over 8 * 8 * 8 = 512 2. Focusing on Speed 2019, meaning training hard and travelling, in order to get some few points in Speed, among the specialists, means you are likely to loose more points in Lead or Boulder: #1 = 100 points and #4 = 55 points/#25 = 5 points. The Top-20 in the overall World Cup 2019 will finish the season with an Qualifying event and here Speed will have more impact as no Speed specialist will probably qualify. However, it is not until the Top-6 final in Tokyo when the Speed ability will have the greatest impact, due to the multiplication format. It should also be mentioned that if you are from countries that have more than two guys that could qualify like: Japan, USA, Austria, France, Italy, Slovenia or Germany, the first qualification WCH in 2019 is most important. After that comp, most likely Japan and one more country have filled their quota.

Some ten years ago, when we often had Grigri accidents, I personally taught many of the most famous climbers how to clip in the Grigri in the harness. Instead of just clipping it in the belay loop they clipped it in sideways by attaching the screw carabiner where you are supposed to tie in. If the screw carabiner is sideways it is much harder for it to lock. Fortunately the bad Grigri accidents have almost stopped which probably relates to this sideways use. However, during the last few weeks I have seen videos of famous athletes that actually feed out rope without holding into the rope. Climbing is a growing sport and safety is most important. I think it would be nice if the athletes and the film producers could take responsibility to not show Grigri misuse in videos which million of climbers end up watching and learn from.

The Youth World Championship was planned to be organized in Canada 7-19/8 but this event was cancelled one month ago. Moscow has now applied for it using the same date. The official decision will be taken 17/3.

Chris Sharma reports on his Instagram that Joe Kinder has done the FA of Life of Villains 9a+ in Hurricane. Two months ago, Joe reported on his Instagram, "ONE HANG!! (after 4 years of working this beast)." (c) Joe Segreti Joe Kinder has been very active on the scene for 15 years always sharing his passion and joy for everything in climbing, including setting up hard routes and creating great videos. Here an interview from 2013 we did with the "always psyched". "It's been a wild experience man to say the absolute least. I am very happy as its been an emotional moment for me. The send yesterday was just a glimpse of the whole story and experience. The grade, title of FA, and all the other terms we use to validate an accomplishment have very little weight when I think about the experience. This is a story I will take with me forever and I am so proud."

Nico Favresse, one of the leading multi discipline climbers for many years, reports on Facebook that he has flashed China Crisis. The Oliana route is one of the most repeated and confirmed 8b+'s in the world. The Belgian being 38 years old, say it is like 8a+ old school grading.

Beto Rocasolano publishes on his Instagram account his FA to Hipoxia 8C in Navalosa, Spain. ©Sara Richart "Yesterday could send Hipoxia 8C in Navalosa, the inverse of Parálisis 8C, but IMO is more obvious cause goes in an ascending traverse, but I have to come back and send the descending one."