Elena Krasovskaia sat a new personal best in Speed at 8.79 during the European Youth Championship in Perm and finished #3 in Youth A. This is the fastest time by a women also performing at a high level in Lead and Boulder. Earlier this month, The Russian won the Boulder and was #10 in the Lead European Youth Champion. In practice, this makes her one of the best prepared for the Combined Olympic format. The same can also be said about Sam Avezou who set a personal best in Speed with 7.39 and finished #6. In the other two disciplines in the European Championship he was #3 in Lead and #5 in Boulder. The French won the Combined in the Tiyth World Championship and was #11 in a Lead WC this summer.

Gabriele Moroni has done his second 8C by repeating Nico Ceria's Ziqqurat in Gaby. On Instagram he reports, "After day one I got completely hooked and felt the need to go to try it whenever I had some free time from work. The process on this boulder has been crazy. From not being able to even do all the moves on day1 to do all the moves and pretty decent links on day2, to actually falling twice at the last move on day 3 and 4. Then on day 5, alone, I managed to put all my physical and mental energies in one single try."

Innsbruck 2018 has published a full length interview with Margo Hayes conducted during the Youth World Championship. (c) Heiko Wilhelm "I don’t think that "first female ascent" is a negative thing. There are also first male ascents and there will be more. Historically, women have not been acknowledged for their work in science, technology, politics, art, and much more. We are trying to narrow the gender gap and I think that by documenting a woman’s achievement it becomes part of history."

Fanatic climbing reports that Yann Ghesquiers has done his fifth 9a by the FA of , Crotte de geek in Ailefroide. Interesting is that he actually started to climb at this crag 40 years ago. In 1991, he was #11 in one Lead World Cup. (c) Jan Novak

Andrea Cartas reports on Facebook that she has done her first 8c+, Cosi Fan Tutte in Rodellar. (c) Javi Pec

Katja Kadic and Rustam Gelmanov got Euro 1 000 winning the fourth edition of the Lienz Free Solo competition. This means climbing on an 18-meter-high, mobile climbing wall without rope only secured by an oversized airbag. Imagine having this set up during the Olympics :) Complete results

Sascha Lehmann SUI - Michelle Hulliger SUI Filip Schenk ITA - Vita Lukan SLO Alberto Lopez ESP - Camille Pouget FRA It should be noted that Filip Schenk competing on the same final route as the juniors, scored the same as Sascha. Laura Rogora, who was #6 in the European Championship for seniors, was fourth in the European Youth A Champion, indicating that there are more girls that could compete in the World Cup. Complete results.

Daniel Woods and Klemen Becan are the two big names for the Kalymnos Festival that starts 6/10 and finishes 8/10. "Climbers can participate in pairs (male, female or mixed) climbing as many routes as possible from 08:00 to 17:00. Each route is graded with certain points depending on the difficulty. The pair that collects most points is the winner of the Rally. The areas set for the Rally are the sectors between North Cape and Poets."