Evening Sends says that probably Honnold's free-solo is the greatest sport achievement ever. I am very sorry but this is really stupid to say something like this. Honnold did it for the challenge and absolutely not for being compared to other sports achievement. Such a statement by Andrew Bisharat is just embarrassing for everyone involved. Physically and technically, it is like running 100 meters on 10.5 seconds. Just imagine how uncomfortable Honnold would be during an award ceremony for the "greatest sport achievement ever", sitting next to; Usain Bolt, Christiano Ronaldo, Michael Jordan, Michael Phelps, Wayne Gretzky and others that have won at least five Olymic Golds or have set five world records. Bisharat's statement might encourage others to do the same to be superior to the above mentioned athletes. We should just salute Honnold's achievement as truly unique and absolutely not compare it with others.

Nautilus says that from a neuroscience point of view, Honnold's brain is "strange". In the very long article from last year, they present results from a scan from his brain as well as questionnaire Honnold answered. "Nowhere in the fear center of Honnold’s brain could the neuroscientist spot activity."

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It is said that putting together Lego constructions and crosswords make youngsters and oldies smarter. Charl de Villiers is about to do a university study in regards how climbing makes youngsters smarter and more mature. "What is the correlation between rock climbing and mathematical problem solving, overall brain development, motor development and self confidence?" Having been a kid's climbing trainer for almost 25 years and through all my communication with the best teenagers in the world for 15 years, I am very sure there is a strong positive correlation in between climbing and early maturity and smartness. The outcome of Charlie's study will be very interesting.

Outsideonline has presented an interesting article by Tommy Caldwell, Why Alex Honnold’s Free Solo of El Cap Scared Me". Here is the most interesting quote. "Alex once told me that he had never fallen completely unexpectedly—meaning without at least some prior inclination that it could happen." Although most have saluted Honnold's achievement some have been critical. The 8a policy is that we do not want to report dead dangerous ascents as we do not want to encourage this type of climbing. During the last 15 years we have broken the policy a couple of times when it is anyhow all over the place. The problem with judging Honnold and the media doing it, is that we are all going for the same acceptable risk when we lead and it is part of the climbing history. If you fall on the worst spot on most 6a sport routes, even on Kalymnos, you will injure yourself. Historically, dangerous run-outs have been considered cool and many consider them fun. The E-grading in UK gives the most credit if you can die. Personally, I climb top-rope as much as possible and I have since I first started bolting been criticized for making the routes too safe. My point here is that if you think it is ok with dangerous run-outs on sport routes, we should only salute Honnold. If you on the other hand think that it should not be possible to hurt yourself with good practice on sport routes, you might very well be critical towards Honnold and the media reporting his ascents. I stay in between, I think it is OK with dangerous bolting on hard routes and I am mostly amazed in regards Honnold's free solos.

Christof Rauch, #1 in the 8a boulder ranking game, won the Zlagboard contest during the Austria Climbing Festival in Austria. He hung almost two minutes 1.59.08. Full ranking Later he tied in for the first time for almost a year and did a personal best with Freedom 8c in Zillertal.

BMC reports that Steve McClure has done his long-term project in Malhalm, weighing in at 9b. Here is part of an article from 2015 describing him as a late bloomer, when we made a review of his autobiography - Beyond the Limits. Having trad climbed for 20 years, Steve started sport climbing when he was 24. At 26 he made his first 8a redpoint (in fact it was 8b) and within a year he went from 8a to 8c+. Two years later, in 1998, he made the FA of Mutation as an 9a but as nobody has repeated it yet, the community now considers it as perhaps 9a+. In fact, other than Jordan Buys (who repeated Rainshadow, 9a at Malham) the only person to have repeated any of his 9a's and harder FAs is Adam Ondra who already has said "The upper end of the grade for sure, 3 stars." for Overshadow 9a+. In fact, using the modern variation and link up thinking, Steve has done several more 9a's but just as a personal challenge as he wants all his routes to be of the highest quality.

El Cap Report has presented some mind-blowing pictures of Alex Honnold free soloing Freerider, almost 1 000 meters up to 7c+, in Yosemite.