Thomas Blaabjerg had a bad auto belay accident in 2013 and the doctors told him he will not be able to climb again. Walking with crutches, last summer he did 8B+, video below, and now he has done Joe Blau 8c+ in Oliana. (c) Melanie Nacnac "Even though I love Bouldering, and it is probably what i am best at, I guess, that I have always been a bit more inspired by lead climbing - especially the long ones! For a long time I had to put lead climbing on hold because of the circumstances (my feet) but after completing Never ending story, I decided to see if it was still possible to chase some of my dreams."

Jorg Verhoeven, one of the leading multi-discipline climbers the last 15 years who won the Lead overall WC in 2008, has launched his Project-9b website. The good news is that it has a training set up so you can follow exactly how he trains and get motivated to do something similar. He has also listed and given specific info of the routes he has tried, including the chosen one - Fight or Flight in Oliana. (c) Tobias Lanzanasto "What's nice about the route is: It's short, which means you can do quite some tries in a day You only stop to clip 3(!) times during the hard part The holds are relatively friendly It is freaking amazing to climb on What about loosing weight just before next trip and how does the time plan look like? I'm not a fan of losing weight, even on short notice. I think power will reduce, and risk of injury will increase. March 1 - 15. I will try to send this trip, and if not come back in April, and eventually next year. That way you might understand the pressure is reduced quite a lot. Open time frame...

Cathy Wagner has done her fourth 8a+ in 2018, Smashing pumpkins direct in El Chorro. "One of the king lines! Evening send as it was too warm. The higher you climb the better it gets!A perfect route anyway." Out of the twelve 8a+' she has done the last year, four she did second go. In total she has recorded 634 routes 8a to 8b which just might be the most any female have done? And as a matter of a fact, including two 8b's and 43 8a's the last twelve month, she is at her peak being 52 years old.

Jakob Schubert, one of the leading competition climbers who just flashed a confirmed an 8C calling it 8B+, reports on Facebook that he has done a ”quick” ascent of Dreamtime giving it a personal 8B+ grade. The legendary boulder was put up as the worlds first 8C by Fred Nicole in 2000. "Although it might not climb as perfectly as in the past (hold broke) it‘s still an amazing boulder and such a nice line! Very happy to send such an historical and legendary boulder." The picture from Heiko Wilhelm is from Jakob's flash of Rah Plats Plats 8A also in Cresciano.

Here you have the 8a Climbing Ethics presented in a traffic light Green, Yellow and Red colors, meaning that there are no absolute right or wrong. In the Epic TV; Onsight, Flash, Redpoint and Headpoining is presented and discussed including giving some tips by Adam Ondra.

On the 21st and the 22nd of April, the vertical walls of Garda Trentino will be the scene of the third edition of the Arco Rock Star, the international contest of climbing photography. Two days during which athletes and photographers will go in search of the photo that describes the athletic gesture, but also the landscape and everything that revolves around climbing - from the fatigue to the smiles, from the sunsets to the beers. In short, a story of passion for climbing and for photography. Two categories, Pro, who are selected by invitation among the leading names in the outdoor photography all around Europe and beyond; and Open, where people can soon register in our website Arco Rock Star or directly at Arco, before the event. For each team, a photographer and maximum three athletes that will try to achieve the coveted prize. Celebrating the La Sportiva 90th anniversary, Arco Rock Star will run a special contest dedicated to the History of climbing and alpinism “La Sportiva Anniversary”.

Nomura Shinichiro has, in an hour, done his third 8C Orochi in Kanoto. It was put up in 2006 by Dai Koyamada and has had six ascents. During the same day the 21 year old also did Ginga 8B+, on his third go. (c) Keiichiro Korenaga Amazingly, the 159 cm tall started climbing on rock last December and directly did two 8C's. Previously, he has focused on competitions and has a silver in the Youth Worlds. In the last five IFSC Lead WCs 2017, his worst position was #29. "What I normally do at my home gym, Project which Dai Koyamada owns, is checking my body condition of basic elements like to see whether my body moves in right way or not and to check holdings. And I have a fixed route to observe my body condition by climbing it. Adding to above, I climb harder route to find out what I am not good at and I should do to get over it. I always try to be aware of finding and getting over a weak point. My climbing on rocks has just began so I would like to gain my experience more in 2018. I am going to try more and more 8B+ over problems. I also would like to compete as a member of Japan National Climbing Team for Lead World Championship."

In a Combined competitions, the guys who perform well in all disciplines are normally the ones who qualify to the final or who win. This is actually not the case in the Combined World Champion qualification in Innsbruck as the results in the three disciplines are not summed together but multiplied. Let us say there are 100 athletes in all three disciplines, the following calculations show that if you are not Top-3 in at least one discipline it almost does not matter if you actually perform well in all three disciplines. In brackets the summed results which is used in most Combined competitions. 1 * 5 * 100 = 500 points (106) 3 * 3 * 57 = 513 points (63) 10 * 10 * 10 = 1000 points (30) If the qualification results were summed, the guy who performed well in all three disciplines would have been the superior winner. However with the multiplication formula, he/she will not have any chance to make it to the Top-6 final. As the Top-30 or so best positions in Speed are occupied by the specialists, it has relatively low impact if you are the best of the non-specialist or dead last. What matters is scoring Top-3 in at least one discipline. It should be mentioned that in the final, good results in all three disciplines are relatively more valuable. Further more, with the Speed specialist out of the game, the importance of a good speed performance is equally important as doing well in Lead and Bouldering two disciplines. 1 * 1 * 6 = 6 (8) 2 * 2 * 2 = 8 (6) 3 * 3 * 1 = 9 (7)

The results will be compared with an identical poll from 2015.

Physical training recipes you find all over and this seems to be the prioritized way of training for almost every dedicated climber. It is easy to follow a physical program and it is easy to measure progress. In practice, this means that most of us have trained hard to optimize our physical strength. At the same time, you might be close to get injured if you just continue that physical focus. In other words, it might most productive to add a couple of hours with technical training instead of a continuation with sub-optimization physical training. Looking at the best climber in the world, Adam Ondra, we can see that what most differate him to other climbers are actually his fast climbing as well as knee-dropping and flexibility. As simple as it sounds, the fastest way to progress for the dedicated climber is probably just to try to copy the master. During every other training session, spend an hour climbing very fast and also practice on your knee-dropping technic as well as doing some flexibility training. Within a month, you have probably made a solid base to take the next step in your progress.