NEWS

Two 8B+' by Jimmy Webb
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.

8A+ by Mile Heyden
20 April 2017

8A+ by Mile Heyden

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 :)

Stefano Ghisoli a challenger for the Olympic gold
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.

19 April 2017

Grigri+ vs Grigri2

La Rambla 9a+ also by Klemen Becan
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.

9a route as preparation for the three Asia Boulder WCs
Domen ล kofic, Lead overall World Cup winner in 2016, will be competing in three Boulder World Cups in Asia starting this weekend in China. Four days ago, he did the first repeat of Jernej Kruder's In Time 9a in Sopata. He also did an 8c second go as well as tried Kruder's 9b+?, picture by Luka Tambaca. "It was just a small break to leave those plastic holds for a day or two." "In Time 9a is Jernej's ex project with a scary 8A dyno at the start followed by a bouldery 8c route. Jernej originally bolted the start two meters to the left but as it was to hard he decided to jump over it :) It's hard to find such complete route that makes boulderers and lead climbers happy at the same time. I will compete the whole world cup circuit, bouldering and lead. I just want to get better in bouldering, some finals would be great. I have a conditioning coach now. I started working with him one month ago but on the wall I still coach myself, no changes there."

Arco a potential hard core mecca
Stefano Ghisolfi has moved to Arco mainly in order to have more hard core routes to do. Previously he lived in Torino and but there he ran out of routes even if he spent over an hour in the car. In Arco there are projects as close as five minutes from his apartment and if you drive an hour there are at least a dozen open projects. This Easter, Alex Megos and Adam Ondra tried some of the open projects in this future potential hard core mecca. On the picture, Stefano is working "One Punch" which probably will be Arco's second 9a+. Just to the right of it, Adam Ondra is projecting an estimated 9b.