tomas ravanal, who last week did La Rambla 9a+ in Siurana, has made the FA of Sin acido clorhidico 8c+, in the same famous El Pati sector. It just took the Chilean ten tries to do the almost 40 meter route which shares the start with 20 Años Después 9a. El Pati is one of the most famous hard core sector in the world and Tomas just made the eleventh 8c+ and harder. "Dani changed some bolts and it is a perfectly fine. The route was clean when I started to try it! I don't really know why anyone has climbed before."

In theory, you should spot your partner before the first clip is done and we can sometimes see this done by very experienced World Cup belayers. In practice, the dilemma is that you end up like 1.5 m from the wall meaning that if he/she falls directly after the clip he/she will land on top of you as you are taking in the slack. Sure there are cases when a good spot is needed and you should pay attention or use another friend, as often the case in World Cups, but normally the first moves are super easy. Another option is of course to pre-clip the first quick draw. Once it is clipped in, you should try to stay close to the wall on the side of the climber and you should remain there until the first two-three drawers are clipped in. Later you can step out half a meter for every clip until you stay 3 - 5 meters from the wall, especially when there are rope drag in the system. Once the person falls you should move inwards in order to make the fall more dynamic. If it is impossible to step out from the wall, you could try to jump up a bit if your partner falls high up in a rope drag situation. The problem is that your instinct will most probably make you sit down instead of jump up during the fall. The simple solution for this is to bend your legs in a critical situation which makes it impossible to sit down and increase the impact of the fall. It most be underlined that, even if the sliding in and jumping up sounds logical and easy, it is very difficult. In order to be a good belayer you need to practice a lot and the best place is of course indoors. You should also try to belay climbers that are both lighter and heavier than yourself including working with different rope drag. The light belayer should almost never stay a long way from the wall and does not need to bend the legs. The risk is instead to get caught into the first quick draw. On the other side, the relatively heavy climber can move a longer away from the wall or bend the legs in order to avoid high impact falls. It takes several years and hundreds of falls to become an experienced climber and there are many special cases especially in trad climbing like feeding out extra slack or even run or jump down. The above advice are general and should be tried out in practice in order to make you and your partner feel safe both climbing as well as belaying. Please also note that most would think that the WC belayer stand too fare from the wall but the reason for this is that he can move forward in order to give out slack during the clip, i.e. only for the expertise.

IFSC has sent out info to the federations that the Youth World Champion in Canada has been cancelled. Officially, IFSC have not reported it but they hope to use the same dates 7 - 19 August in another location.

Kintana Iltis has done Dirty Epic 8A and Tea With Elmarie 8A (+) in Rocklands. Her father gives us the story and says that the big goal is the Youth World Championship in Canada. "Kintana begin to climb in Reunion Island (fr) when she was 9 years old. At first time it was a choice imposed by the shark crisis in Réunion because Kintana prefer to surf and was detected for competition. Now she's 14 years old, very happy to climb in natural crags, routes and boulders and gifted for competition. She like sports challenges. We started climbing family trips in India at Hampi when Kintana was 10 years old. Since then, we are finding places for climbing in our holidays. South Africa is not far from Réunion Island, so it's a good place for us to go with friends to search goods news experiences in routes or boulders."

Tarragona in Catalonia, Northeast Spain, is one of those destinations a climber must know. Whether world class climber or ambitious amateur, sooner or later you should pick a project and go for it. Right on time for high season in the area, the new edition of „Tarragona Climbs“ with more than 3800 routes is now available. Especially the content on the world-class zones such as Siurana, Montsant and Margalef has been considerably expanded compared to the previous edition. The guidebook is written by Pete O’Donovan in collaboration with Dani Andrada, who opened hundreds of routes in the area. For the first time, this guidebook is also available in the Vertical-Life App. The combination of printed book and digital content, that can be unlocked through a code inside the book, is available exclusively on orders via the Vertical-Life online shop.

Instagram is a great communication tool but it can also create pressure that can be hard to handle. It might be wise for especially youngsters to not report/show of with good training and keep saying, on a daily basis, that everything is so good in order to get many likes, as this could build up anxiety. Sooner or later there is a competition coming up and what you have been saying on social media might feel like pressure. On the other hand, if you are a very experienced and successful climber who will not loose your sponsors just because you fail once or twice, you can do as Jorg Verhoeven. Use social media to put pressure on yourself so you have to commit 100 %. Some months ago, the World Cup winner 2008 who is a high class climber in all disciplines from bouldering to big-walls, declared that his goal is to do an 9b. If you do not have such a broad climbing background as Jorg, you better avoid such Instagram posts but I am sure it works for Jorg :) "The idea is to come back in Febuary, and send in March (or even April) when conditions are prime. That means not a whole lot of training time left, but it for sure is possible. I feel like power endurance (20-40 moves) needs to increase, but also pure power (so that I'll need lees endurance). I put the odds at 75:25!"

Holding your arms above the head, as you are doing most of the time when you are climbing, improves the blood circulation. Once your are lowered down, your forearms are at risk to be flooded which will reduce the blood circulation. In order to get better endurance and reduce the time until your next burn, you better stay at the top jug and rest for a minute. Make your partner take most of the load in the rope and shake out as normal. This will reduce the risk for the fore arm to get flooded and optimize the blood circulation. If you fall, you could immediately grab the rope with straightened arm pretty hard and once you are at the ground, you can shake out by grabbing some jugs you can reach from the floor.

Eric Hörst has made some interesting analysis of Margo Hayes ascent of Biographie 9a+ in Céüse. From the video, it can be seen that she climbs the 30 m route in five intervals, around one minute of fast climbing followed by a rest in between one to three minutes. This goes in line with old previous training articles here on 8a and also how Adam Ondra climbs. In practice, this means that you are going for an indoor onsight, you should try to climb very fast and then do full stop and rest every six meters or 45 seconds as you are probably not as fit as Hayes and Ondra. In the video we can also see that Margo finishes off every session by first clipping and the start to rest. In theory, she could have saved some energy by actually first rest and midways in her resting, clipped the quick draw. This would have means shorter intervals with intense climbing and more time spent in a resting mode.