Jimmy Webb reports on Instagram that he has done Daniel Woods' problem Creature from the Black Lagoon, a RMNP 8C+ boulder repeated previously by Dave Graham. (C) Hannah Donnelly "One of my main goals of the trip is complete with the 3rd ascent of the ultra sick @dawoods89 test piece 'Creature from the Black Lagoon' V16. After 6 days of work gaining the necessary power, power endurance, and alpine fitness I was finally able to take it down. Feels so damn good to climb such a stunner!! Still got plenty of time left in the alpine and there's tons more to do." Jimmy probably is the best flash climber ever and was #1 in the ranking game for a while and now he is #3 in the world ranking game.

Spanish youngster Jorge Diaz-Rullo did his first 9a+ Ali Hulk Extension in Rodellar. It is the 3rd repeat of Dani Andrada's route since 2007. In the picture onsighting Detectives 8a. (c) Carlos Padilla "I can't believe it yet! So happy! After 10 days working on the cave I could do it today. Thanks to all my friends for supporting me and specially to Octavio, who was pulling me up to try the moves. So nice, then celebrating and kept saying "don't stop!" Not too many references about the grade, Andrada said at first as well as Danilo Pereyra and Magnus Midtbø in the 9a/+ and 9a+ range." Jorge is in holidays right there in Rodellar with a nice list in just a month. Seven routes from 8c to 9a+.

Jan Hojer, competing against five guys from Asia, put on an amazing show in the Boulder World Cup final in Munich. Some 3 000 spectators got crazy for each top and when he also topped the last boulder and secured the victory, it was an epic thunder and lightening moment. Jan got emotional and after the event he took the microphone and explained how much their support meant. Among the females, Janja Garnbret who has won the three first Lead WCs this year, won her third Bouldering WC. Once again she did it by showing spectacular technique using all of her body from the toes to the head continuing and stopping big pendelum swings. The young Slovenian also saved the show for the route setters, together with Stasa Gejo, as the other four climbers basically could not establish the start or doing the first move on two consecutive boulders. (c) Eddie Fowke Complete results 1. Jan Hojer GER 4t10 4b6 - Janja Garnbret SLO 3t10 3b6 2. Tomoa Narasaki JPN 3t6 3b3 - Shauna Coxsey 2t2 2b2 3. Taisei Ishimatsu JPN 3t7 3b4 - Akiyo Noguchi 1t1 2b4 4. Jongwon Chon KOR 2t3 3b4 - Stasa Gejo 1t3 3b9 5. Yoshiyuki Ogata JPN 2t3 3b4 - Alex Puccio 1t3 2b4 6. Kokoro Fujii JPN 2t9 2b6 - Petra Klingler 0 1b4 Follow up article where the Japanese, Chon and Hojer, explain their recipe for success is coming up.

1. Jongwon Chon KOR 453 - Shauna Coxsey GBR 560 2. Tomoa Narasaki JPN 404 - Janja Garnbret SLO 470 3. Alexsey Rubtsov RUS 399 - Akiyo Noguchi JPN 380 4. Keita Watabe JPN 372 - Miho Nonaka JPN 377 5. Kokoro Fujii JPN 327 - Petra Klingler SUI 290 6. Rei Sugimoto JPN 278 - Stasa Gejo SRB 234 7. Jan Hojer GER 235 - Katja Kadic SLO 227 8. Yoshiyuki Ogata JPN 232 - Michaela Tracey GBR 190 Five Japanese male in Top-8!

Having talked to most of the top male WC boulderers and many of the coaches, it seems like everyone is going for the Olympics. Nobody, besides the French guys, have started any serious Speed training but many say they will start this winter. In one way, it is good for the athletes that most give low priority for Speed which makes it feel less hard to become a very good Speed climber. On the other hand, the French guys did perform relatively bad in Munich which could be explained their broader focus already. Alexey Rubtsov said specifically that he plans to not train Lead but just Boulder and Speed as it is not a problem to be weak in one discipline if you are good in the other two. The Combined result is calculated by multiplication.

Janja Garnbret and Stasa Gejo both scored 4t6 4b6 in the semifinal of the Munich Boulder World Cup which made the route setter have to rebuild one of the male problems. After both had failed to do the first move and dyno twice, Stasa made it and reached one more hold putting pressure on Janja, who missed the dyno again. Among the males Jan Hojer won ahead of Alex Megos creating some unfairness for Jan as he has to stay waiting for the cermony. Jan was not so happy about the new rule having the European Champion during the semi. At the same time the Japanese and Jongwon Chon left the venue directly after the semifinal getting some food and rest at the hote, Jan is still here waiting for the medal cermony. The unfairness was even worse for the females having to do one more boulder. The World Cup final starts 18:00.

Fixed quick draws are potential death traps as the lower carabiner can get so worn down that it becomes like a knife cutting off a rope. This is something that is quite easy to check. A death trap which is much harder to observe is the webbing being worn down on the back side due to friction against the rock. In Sweden a climber broke the webbing on a fixed quick draw on a popular crag some weeks ago. Earlier this spring another climber broke the webbing after just many side falls over a lip. Check also the backside of the webbing the next time you see fixed quick draws especially if it has contact with the rock. A bolter should also have this in mind to never place a bolt which might put the webbing in friction danger. It might also be wise to check your quick draws including the webbing once in a while to check that they are in good shape.

The qualification has started and here you have the Updated results. Live-streaming on IFSC starts with semifinal at 10:00 and Final 18:00. Shauna Coxsey has already secured the title and among the male, Jongwon Chon is #1. If Alexey Rubtsov wins the last event, Chon needs to be #3 to secure the title. The Russian could also win if he is third in Munich and Chon is #12 or worse. In theory, Keita Watabee could also win overall.

Evan Hau, who previously has repeated two 9a's, has done the FA of Honour and Glory 9a+ in Echo Valley. (c) Simon Parsons "Can't believe it's done!!! What an incredible journey! After chasing this grade for years I knew the only way I could get it done was to find and bolt one at home in The Bow Valley, Canada. It took many trips to Europe to try various routes of this grade and understand what I was looking for. At last I was able to find a completely independent line at the perfect difficulty at a cliff I already frequented anyway! I started bolting this route 16 months ago last April and tried to get on it as much as possible since then, pretty much 12 out of the last 16 months it's been climbable. In the cold, in the heat, wet, whatever. Today was incredible. Amazing conditions, I felt tired on the warmup so I didn't really think I had a shot, but maybe that took some of the pressure off. I passed my highpoint and then I didn't fall off the final move like I thought I would. STOKED!!"

Chuck Odette started climbing in 1978 and did his first 7a+ 1989 at 34 years old. Since two years, he is a full time retired climber who is getting a new peak at 61 years old doing the FA of Bulletproof Monk 8b+ in Logan Canyon. (c) Heidi Baxter "Technically, it's been a 2 year process. My wife (Maggie Odette 8b+ in 2016 being 46) and I have been on the road full time since June of 2015, which helps a lot. We've been living in our little Scamp Trailer for the past 2 years and 2 months! We change locations about every 2 or 3 months, following the weather usually. We're able to climb and rest on our schedule rather than climbing just on weekend and training during the week. Full time climbers have it made :) blog. I really started focusing on this route last year when I bombed out in Maple trying to do a couple of the longer 8b+ routes there. I was very close, but the best I could do was to repeat a couple 8b/8b+ routes last summer. The two routes, Ego Boost (8b/8b+) and Mexican Rodeo (8b/8b+), I had done when I was a much younger 50 years old... HA! Logan Canyon was essentially my local "home" crag for many years (1994 to 2002) so it made sense to go back to Logan and try something hard there this year. I had put up a new line called Shaolin (8b) in 2014 and linked it to a harder longer endurance finish and called it Golden Child (8b+) also done in 2014. I tried to link Shaolin into another, more direct finish at that time, which is the finish I just did, but I felt like it was too powerful for me to do at my advanced age. It's 7B or 7B+ boulder grade maybe? Hard for old geezers... or so I thought...??? :) Being away from the route for three years made me think about it more and I felt that it might be possible for me to do if I trained specifically just for that finish. Maggie and I decided to return to Logan Canyon this year so she could do a couple of FFA's or harder 8a+ and 8b grade possibly, and so I could work on linking Shaolin into this much harder finish... To prepare for this, we spent 6 weeks bouldering in the Priest Draw of Northern Arizona, which is steep pocked limestone (like China Cave) and very powerful movement. We trained hard on our portable tripod back in camp every night after bouldering, three days a week. We did weighted pull ups, gymnastic ring push ups and lots of core training stuff. Power is our weakness, so all we did was work our weakness during that time. On our rest days, we both do a lot of Ashtanga (power) yoga for recovery and opposition muscle strength training. Basically, we were doing active recovery while balancing out our pull muscles to help prevent injury. When we arrived to climb in China Cave (Logan Canyon) we were both extremely fit for it. I repeated a handful of routes to build a pyramid toward the ultimate goal of sending the new and harder finish to Shaolin. After repeating The Golden Child, during this phase, I knew I was ready to link the harder variation. It took three climbing days (over a five day period) to work out the moves to the new finish. Three more climbing days later (and another five day period) I linked the entire rig for the redpoint. I felt lucky since my physical, mental and emotional states were all at peak performance levels. Coincidentally, my peak performance level corresponded with cooler temps. We had been climbing in 30-32C temps (in the shade!) and on the send day it was only 25C. Sometimes there's a bit of "luck" involved when sending something at your limit!"