hugo parmentier, who got two podiums in the European Boulder and Lead Championships in 2017, has done his first 9a, Mollasse'son in Mollans. (c) Didier Le Gall "I came two weeks ago and worked it six times. This weekend I give a go to try the moves again and then I've done it on my first real go from the ground. This route suites my style: small crimps and short power endurance. With some super rests between sections. It's for sure it's a great step in my climbing, also because I discover these days how working a route route is awesome and now I want to try harder for sure ! For 2018, as a first year in senior, I will focus on comps. I want to do the World Cup circuit in lead and do the Combined at the World Championships and for sure some outdoor climbing when competitions will give some times. This route and the psyched for it really makes me think about other projects. Next week off for the Bouldering Nationals." In the 8a Combined ranking game, Hugo is #20. In the Combined Youth World Champion last year, he was #8.

Adam Ondra reports on his Instagram, with 200 000+ followers, that he has done the FA of Pure Dreaming 9a in Arco and the second ascent? of X-Large, for which he suggest upgrade to 8c+. He also did FA of the link-up Underground into Pure Dreaming 9a+. (c) Giampaola Calza in Athena 8c. In total, the 25 year old has now done 158 routes 9a and harder out of which 100 9a's. Bare in mind that the Czech is the top climbers who most often gives personal up- or downgrades, the one having the widest grade pyramid, highest portion of onsights and FAs. He is also the top climbers that most frequent reports chipped routes. In total, Adam has recorded 1 975 routes in his scorecard.

Loic Zehani, who previously has done nine 9a's, has sent Llamps i trons in Margalef for which he suggest an upgrade to 9a, after a broken hold. He also onsighted his first 8b, Photo Shoot and the 16 year old comments. "The vacation starts good."

3rdrockclothing reports that Gerard Rull has done La Rambla 9a+ in Siurana. "It is clear Gerard has certainly left behind his serious pulley injury which occurred in 2016 which required surgery. His recovery encompassed most of 2017, it is exciting to see him back on top form." On his Instagram with a picture by Ilia Karpenko: "I never felt so loved and supported by all my people. So I just want to say thanks. Thanks to all those that supported me all the way here, that believed in me in every single moment, even in the darkest ones:" The FA of La Rambla was done in 2003 and it has now been repeated 19 times, out of which seven times just the last year, which makes it the most repeated 9a+ in the world. The FA was made as an eliminate and once the repeaters did go further out using a jug, Ramonet said his version was harder. The 9a+ grade has also been questioned later but all the last ten repeaters have confirmed it. Originally, it was Alex Huber who did the FA in 1994 to an anchor some six meters below calling it La Ramla 8c+. Alex have later said that his route should be considered 9a based on modern grading and some repeaters including Adam Ondra have confirmed this.

Based on 1 000+ unique votes, "How do you climb/train?", we can see that the results are more or less the same as an identical poll in 2015. This might be interesting to some as it seems there are more focus on training programs in the media. The first time we did the poll was in 2013 and then there were less focus on training. 13 % I follow a strict program - 13 % in 2015/ 10 % in 2013 46 % A bit of both - 48 % / 40 % 41 % I just climb - 39 % / 50 %

Chris Ring has done some analysis based on the 8a.nu database to see if age has any impact on the reached peak climbing grade for U.S. climbers. R & I has found Ring's analysis interesting and published a long article. In the diagram, we can see that in between 18 - 36 age, the hardest reached grade is almost the same. Even more interesting, Ring tracked the change in the maximum reached grade from year to year and he actually found a late blooming tendency. "The model estimated that a person’s hardest grade will gradually increase between the early 20’s and the early 40’s, on average." Looking practically on which ages perform the hardest grades in climbing we can see that for the female, it varies from 13 - 39 (Shiraishi and Sarkany). Among the male we have had 14 year old' that perform on the highest level and just now Yuji Hirayama (49) is close to send La Rampla 9a+. This means that climbing is unique when it comes to a wide age gap performing at the highest level for physical sports.

Eric Hörst has made an in-depth analysis of Adam Ondra's video doing Silence 9c and presented it on Training for Climbing. The keys he has found are; Speed; "In my 40 years as a climber, I’ve never witnessed (or viewed on video) a climber moving so fast up a difficult climb." Intervals: "Like Margo Hayes’ ascent of Biographie, Adam climbed all the crux chunks in under 60 seconds—quite literally racing from rest position to rest position—and, just like Margo, Adam spent more time resting on the route than he did actually climbing it!" "The anaerobic lactic energy system can support a high ATP flux in the working muscles for approximately 60 seconds of sustained, high-power pulling and crimping." Screaming; "his MO of screaming through hard sequences is an excellent strategy to drive deep breathing and maintain aerobic power, by avoiding the common problem of “legacy breath holding” (as I call it) in which you continue to breath-hold beyond the instant of doing a single hard move (this results in hypoxia and a greater rate of fatigue)." So to put it simple, this means while training in the gym, you should opt for training to climb faster than normal and divide the routes in 3-4 intervals and in between focus on resting.

Daniel Woods reports on Facebook that he has done his first 9b, La Capella in Siurana on his fifth day on. Adam Ondra put up the bouldery route in 2011 and last month Stefano Ghisolfi did the first repeat. (c) Jon Cardwell "The climb is broken into 3 boulder problems with no rest. An intro 5 move 8A+ (v12), straight to a 7 move 8A+/B v12/13, straight to a 5 move 7C (v9). After this you get a victory 7b (12b) to the anchor. All natural and amazing movement with some of the coolest grips I’ve grabbed onto." Daniel has been one of the leading climbers the last ten years especially in bouldering having done both 8C+ and a flash of an 8b+. In 2010, he won the boulder WC in Vail.

Moritz Perwitzschky has been on a nice trip to Ticino where he flashed Ganymede Takeover 8A+ and another two 8A's beside doing four more 8A+'. What is special with the 18 year old who is #3 in the Combined 8a ranking game, is his extremely wide grade pyramid. Already last year we picked this up based on this question. Is it not time to raise the bar and go for something really hard? I think not. I just want to climb as much as possible and the result doesn't even matter. The fitness and the sends will come sooner or later, if you don't get injured. And as I don't do any systematical training, I don't really know, what I'm capable of so let's see. This year, we can see that he has raised the bar based on this question. What about the 2018 plan and ambition? 2018 plan climbing and bouldering outside as much AS possible, summer Rocklands, 9a Route, 8C Boulder is the goal for this year.

Livello Zero has published an interview with the film maker Bernardo Gimenez. "We choose to keep the movie in a documentary format, without the over-polished look which a lot of climbing films generally try to achieve.