Mina Leslie-Wujastyk has done The Pursuit Of Happiness 8B (A+) in Redhill outside Cape Town. (c) Jimmy Webb " I had two sessions in 2014 and then three more sessions this year, it was really satisfying to come back stronger (I did a lot of strength training over the winter). The next plan is to head to Rocklands for June, hopefully try some more hard boulders!" So what kind of strength training have you done? Lots of things but a big focus on max strength fingerboarding. Up to three times a week fingerboarding, lots of board climbing, also weighted pull ups and other conditioning exercises too. I did some anaerobic capacity work too but mainly relied on my fitness from route climbing and previous training. I had training plans from David Mason and Alex Barrows (they worked together with David mainly doing to strength/power stuff and Alex doing the fitness stuff).

Alex Puccio, the vice World Champion from 2014, has done Dead Meadow 8B in Wild Basin. In total she has done 20 boulders 8B and harder which makes her the #1 female boulderer sending most hard core outdoors. "Was suppose to be a rest day and went out to spot Joel. He got me all psyched to try it and surprised myself with a send. First day on it as well. Psyched! :) Now time for Vail WC!!! The season is just starting up now and since it's been snowing in the alpine and too hot at the lower elevation stuff we have been climbing mostly inside. But after Vail we plan to mostly climb outside! People have started going to RMNP and digging things out so let's see how fast stuff melts out." (c) Joel Zerr

A bolt placed on a lip above a roof where you continue climbing diagonal might be a death trap as several sideway and inward falls might break the sling. If it does not break but did wear down significantly, against the rock, you might be carrying a death trap quick draw in your rack. A Swedish climber was lucky, some days ago, when his 18 months sling broke after 5-7 such sideway and inwards falls. All bolts where the sling is at risk for such breaking should be removed.

From the city center of Göteborg, with almost 1 million inhabitants, you can reach 2 000 climbs divided equally into boulders, trad and sport, within 30 minutes on a cycle. This makes Göteborg the most urban climbing medium city in the world. The amazing thing is that there just the latest few years more than 100 new sport routes have been developed, including a four pitch 6a and also the first beginner crag right in the epicenter of the famous trad area. Last year, Alex Megos did a a nicely located superb 8B+ which you can reach within nine minutes in the train and three minutes walk from the city center. "One of my greatest boulder FAs ever". (c) Daniela Ebler Equally amazing is that there are still great potential for at least 100 sport, trad and boulder FA's. Last August we moved to the center of the sport climbs and during the autumn I started projecting some 30 routes, with 500 meters from our house, out of one is a very nice five pitch 6a. In practice, I just rappelled down next to my first MP, which is also the only sport MP within 700 km, and started to climb, no brushing was necessary. All these projects will be finished within a fortnight after coming back from our big travel 1/6. Anybody interested to climb in Göteborg should also bear in mind that within one hour, there are another 500+ sport routes often located just near to the sea. One hour north does also "Bohuslän" starts which is a trad granite area in world class. In this area you can also find Granitogrotta, 17 meters overhang up to 8c+ FA Ondra, and Lysekil, beginner and kids friendly crags, with totally some 250 very well protected sport routes. Please post questions as a forum comment.

Being a National Youth Coach for many years I see and hear that the scene is changing a lot, especially for the youngest category. In the last European Youth Cup in Imst there were 100 youngsters 02- 03 competing and level for the top has gone up. Flash is nice but at the same time, the coaches and parents are running the beta and some of the not so strong kids were crying behind the scene, after an early fall. My focus as a coach was equally as much outdoors and we never did any structured or periodization training before the comps. I sometimes let almost "beginners" compete but just as a motivation boost. The message to the coaches and parents who bring some not so strong kids, just focus on the fun. Do not set up a structured training program and create beta robot climbers at the scene in order to optimize their performance. It is just not fair to the not so experienced kids who are competing against youngsters that possibly have trained 15+ hours for several years. Trying to optimize the performance for the "beginners" will just creates anxiety and possibly they will just stop competing.

Katrin Gründler (born Sedlmayer) has done her second 8c, Roof Warrior in Frankenjura and her story is quite interesting. (c) moritz perwitschky "I started climbing when I was 10 years old. In these years my focus was on alpine routes (“Fleichbank Ostwand, Wilder Kaiser” at the age of 13). Then I was fascinated by on sight climbing and competition-climbing (greatest success European Champion 2000 in Munich and Weltcup Winner in Lecco 2002). During the following years climbing got somewhat less important because I finished studying and had two children. Bit by bit climbing became again more and more important to me, and I was lucky to meet some strong young climbers who motivated me to try harder routes. So I was able to climb one 8c two years ago and now I scored again. To gain success I spent about 10 days on “Roof Warrior” (8c), Universum, Frankenjura. The climbing is very athletical and needs a lot of endurance. You are starting with a vertical wall, followed by an impressive roof. I really enjoyed this kind of climbing, because it´s my style." Due to clever and well adapted training and above all, great motivation I am still able, in spite of my age, to climb quite hard routes. Maybe I could have climbed harder routes at the age of twenty but unfortunately I never tried."

The first European Youth Cup in 2017 started out in Imst with 250 participants. The route setting team included Kilian Fischuber and many said it was the best route setting ever. Previous years, Austria and Slovenia have dominated but now the top positions were more evenly spread out. As previous years, out of the big countries UK and especially Germany have hard time getting their youth high up in the ranking. Several hundred more pictures from Kletterzentrum. The Norwegian head coach, Reino Horak, agrees that the route setting was excellent and also comments that it can be seen that the level of Youth B has gone up. Here are the winners and noteworthy is that Nika Potapova was the only one who topped out all three routes. All three boys and Nika are 8a members. 98: V Shevchenko RUS - H Doumont BEL 00: F Schenk ITA - N Arc FRA 02: A Gines ESP - N Potapova UKR Complete results