Adam Ondra publishes on his Instagram that yesterday he did Stefano Ghisolfi's Lapsus 9b in Andonno, Italy. The same day, after two hours driving, he also did Perfect Man 2.0 9a on the 2nd go in Castelbianco. (C) Jan Novak "Lapsus 9b in Andonno gets its second ascent today after @steghiso. Amazing conditions and feeling pretty strong today. It was so good that we drove down to Castelbianco the same afternoon and I did 2nd go ascent of Perfect Man 2.0 9a after @Matteo_gambaro. Planet Mountain has got some comments from Adam.

The next weekend, the World Cup tour continues in China and based on the starting list we can see that bouldering is booming. There will be some 20 % more participants compared to last year and all the big names are listed. Interestingly, very few take the opportunity to try out Speed and the same for Speed climbers not trying Bouldering. Talking to several of the athletes, it seems that they wait for the qualification format to be set before they make the decision to go for Combined.

Jimmy Webb has done two 8B+'s in Shelter in Bavona and Ill Trill in Magic Wood. Eddie Fowke In total, Jimmy has done 77 boulders 8B+ which is among the Top-5 in the world. When it comes to flashes, he is #1 with ten 8B's and 29 8A+'s and bare in mind that he is one of the guys who most often gives personal grades.

Mile Heyden, who last month did her first 8B+, has done La Cicatrice de l'ohm 8A+ (B) in Fontainebleau. (c) Matti Stanek " I was able to do all the moves in the first session and it took me four total to finally climb it. Two times I fell on the last move before the top out. My next plan is Magic Wood for three days if the weather gets better. Got some open project there like Pura Vida :)

Many have said that Sean McColl is the favorite to win the gold in Tokyo 2020 as he has won many Combined titles and as he has been competing in Speed for so many years. The first challenger, beside Adam Ondra, could be Stefano Ghislofi who is currently the Italian Champion in 2010 and is 17 years old, at 7.96. Video The Italian has also won two Italian Cups in bouldering as well as being in one WC final in 2014. "I do not plan to start training Speed until the Italian Federation prepares some training. My focus is climbing on rock besides the Lead World Cup and I think I could be as fast as in 2010 without so much training. I have not been thinking about it that much but I hope I do not need to sacrifice any outdoor climbing until the last year before Tokyo." The dilemma for all the guys with Olympic ambitions that do not have any previous Speed background is that they will sacrifice outdoors. Most likely, the Speed training will actually make you drop some in your Boulder and Lead performance, and that can create anxiety. The guys who ultimately will perform the best will probably be the climbers who do not need to train Speed to qualify. They can just continue as normal and start focusing hard on Speed just some months before the Olympic event. It just might be very hard to mentally start training Speed now and understand that you might perform worse in comps and outdoors for three straight years, just to have the chance to get a medal in 2020.

Klemen Becan reports on Instagram that he has done La Rambla 9a+ in Siurana. This was the 19th ascent, out of which six just in 2017, of Ramon Julian Puigblanque's classical route from 2003. (c) Anja Becan Last year, the 35 year old Slovenian did his first two 9a+'s, Joe Mama and Papichulo both in Oliana. He should also be considered as one of the best onsight climbers in the world with several 8c's under his belt. Until 2013, Klemen competed intensively in the World Cup for 13 years and won the event in 2008.