Adam Ondracomments his and the world’s first 9a+ flash. The picture by Bernardo Gimenez is from Adam's Instagram. ”Flashing Super Crackinette is definitely a big mental breakthrough for me. 9a+ flash has been a goal of mine for many years now, but the problem is to find a good route. And once you have it, it is a problem to find someone who gives you the perfect beta. And then, the pressure could be way bigger than competing in the finals of World Championships. I had only tried seriously two routes of 9a+ grade in the past - Biographie in 2012 and Seleccion Anal in 2014. Biographie was quite far, Seleccion Anal was very close, but it is definitely not a reference for 9a+ and i honestly think it is more of 9a hard. Then, I pretty much ran out of convenient routes. Then, I was once in St Leger and saw this project. It was a project with 9a question mark. It looked so perfect. A few moths later, Alex Megos finally made the first ascent and gave it 9a+. I knew immediately this could be the goal. Perfect line and reference grade by Alex himself. This trip, I came to St Leger specifically for this trip. And it was a lot of pressure. I had so much doubts if I am strong enough, if I should not postpone that by another year. But then Bernardo was supposed to come for the filming, Quentin Chastagnier was supposed to come to show me all the moves (thanks for that!). At one point, there was no step back. I had to give it a try. And I felt just so strong and confident, but as the end was getting closer, I could feel a bit nervous. The final last hard move was heartbreaking, but in the end, I had a tiny margin and did not let go. The way towards the anchor was free and towards one of my proudest achievements of my carrier.

Magnus Midtbo, #4 in Arco WVH and 8c+ onsight, started Vlogging ten months ago and has now made 110 episodes. It is about his daily life and also showing some extreme training regimes. In the video below he comes clean and talk about social media and how to get attention for the sponsors. He has almost 35 000 subscribers on his Youtube channel and 121 000 followers on his Instagram.

Tom Randall has done La Fuerza de la Gravedad in Vadiello giving it a personal grade of 8b. Last year Carlos Logroño made the FA with the gear pre-placed. (C) Talo Martín In December Tom tried the route for three days with Swedish WC athlete Hannes Puman (19) with no success. Hannes only climbed cracks once days before with Randall as well on a bouldery 7A+ roof-crack in La Pedriza. He also never put a cam before so both considered that could be better with the cams pre-placed. Surprisingly Hannes did it after just check the route for the first two days without any expectations and sending it the last day on his first try leading. Last week, Tom sent it after warm up on the route and sending on his first go placing the gear on lead. Video coming soon. Randall has previously done 15 trad routes between 8b+ and 8c+, Century Crack, and should be considered one of the best crack climbers in the world. He also have a 9a+ trad project, the Crucifix, in USA and plans to go there one month in October. Tom has chatted to Adam about Century Crack and the Crucifix because the fact that Silence has a crack in the middle, seemed very interesting. Surprisingly, Adam said that Century Crack was one of the few hard trad routes that he’d be interested in repeating. Likewise Tom has said that he’s keen to look at the crack beta on Silence as it looks very similar to a lot moves him and Pete Whittaker have done.

Matt Fultz has after 13 8B+' done his first 8C by the FA of The Expanse in Joe's Valley. Last week he won both the qually and semi in the USA bouldering nationals and was #4 in the final. More info at his Instagram (c) Kieran Hadley "It took me about 6 sessions in total. I’ve never competed in a World Cup, but I’m planning on doing Vail and the world championships in Austria this year!" What is interesting is that the the 26 year old has had an almost continuous progress for eight straight years. In the 8a ranking game, the 183 cm and 78 kg, is #7.

Adam Ondra reports on Instagram that he has done the FA of Eagle 4 9b in St. Leger, France. © Bernardo Giménez "Today, it was dry, I felt strong, made through the hard part and fell 5m from the anchor from totally easy terrain. Luckily, I could do it even second time in the late afternoon." Few days ago Adam did Super Crackinette, the first 9a+ flashed ever. In the last 12 months Ondra has done 23 routes from 9a to 9c. In total, there exist 30 established routes 9b or harder. Adam has done 22 of them. The runner up is Chris Sharma with seven 9b's or harder.

It is nice to see how well the grading system works around the globe and that we have a slow but steady grade inflation is just natural. One of the reason for this is the calculation grading that some topo authors as well as websites use. Let us say twelve guys do and report a 9a and then three guys come along suggest 8c+. The calculated grade would still be 9a although it just might be that most of the first repeaters did actually not suggest 9a. Instead they just used the topo grade, as they do not care, or possibly wanted to make the first ascentionists and the sponsors pleased. Other possible reasons for the 8c+ suggestions, might be that a new sequence was found or a hold broke making it easier. In practice, trying to calculate grade, a higher weight should be given to the last suggestions otherwise the multiplication sum just might continue the grade inflation.

Michael Gunsilius, who previously has done one 9a, has done his first hard trad route, Prinzip Hoffnung 8b+ in Bürs which Beat Kammerlander put up in 2009. Two of five tries Michael worked until the afternoon, sat into car drove 250km and did one try before the condition were to bad to do another try in the evening. "It's 40m long with round 20 placements and it's a specific kind of limestone therefore it's difficult to protect, you need special offset gear because most of the placements are not parallel like in granit. Additional you have to belay super soft because a few of the nuts are only made for technical climbing and not for protecting regular fall." Next up is to do an 8b+ MP this summer to push his limits in yet another disciplines. If Michael reaches his next goal, and including a previous 8B boulder, he should be considered one of the best multi-discipline climbers working full time.

James Webb reports on his Instagram that he had to leave Fontainbleau due to rain and instead went to Cresciano where he did Dreamtime 8C on his first day. (c) Kevin Takashi Smith "4 years ago I spent countless days trying this thing and was never able to put it to rest. It was a massive mental and physical battle for me and it killed me to not be able to complete it." Dreamtime was put up by Fred Nicole in 2001 as an 8C but was considered 8B+ for many years until it broke. In total James has previously done 14 boulder 8C and one 8C+ and he is #2 in the 8a ranking game. Counting only flashes, he has been #1 for several years including having flashed 14 boulders 8B.

Yuji Hirayama reports on Facebook that he is leaving for a three weeks trip to Spain where he wants to finish something he worked hard on 2005. " I do not know if the timing of life is limited and I can fill in the past time, but now I want to clip the anchor!!!" What he must be talking about is La Rambla 9a+ in Siurana. What an extreme feat it would be if he could take it down being 48 years old. During the last years he has done both 8c+ and 8B+. Yuji should be considered the most accomplished multi discipline climber in the world the last 25 years: