Matty Hong reports on Instagram with this great picture that his girlfriend Anna Liina Laitinen has done Joe Blau in Oliana which was is her second 8c+. After the Fin had done her first 8c+ in Dec 2016, she commented to 8a. How can you explain your fast progress in the last year? Travelling, training and the company I've been climbing with. One year ago I started training a lot, more than ever. But the progress is not only explained by training hard but the biggest improvement has been in a mental part of climbing and caused by just climbing a lot in a different places, different routes, and pushing myself to a situations I'm not feeling the most comfortable with. The company I've spent time and traveled have had a huge impact to my climbing as well. When your friends are climbing hard you naturally start trying harder routes. And I'm sure I wouldn't climb this hard without my positive boyfriend Matty Hong who's super psyched as well. Being super motivated and psyched to climb is my secret. And there's no end for it which is scary!

Shauna Coxsey, who won the Boulder WC last year, did all four boulders in a superior way. Besides that, we only saw nine successful attempts and contrary to the qualification and semi, the route setters miscalculated the difficulty. In fact, male winner Kokoro Fujii did just one boulder. The commentators mentioned that probably high temperatures in the arena created bad conditions for the athletes. The new max 4 min rule could also possibly explain the few tops. Overall, it also had a negative impact when it comes to excitement. It was great free live-streaming besides the fact that the commentators several times could not analyze the running results and sometimes they even miss-lead the viewers. (c) Eddie Fowke - The Circuit Climbing who has a gallery well worth checking out. 1. Shauna Coxsey 4t10 4b8 - Kokoro Fujii 1T1 3b6 2. Katharina Saurwein 2T6 3b13 - Alexey Rubtsov 1T2 2b8 3. Miho Nonaka 1T2 3b6 - Keita Watabe 1T3 2b12 Complete results What's interesting is that there were three Japanese in the Top-4 among the male and in the Top-21, seven were from Japan.

With 115 male participants, many big names failed to make the Top-20 semifinal: Narasaki, Bonder, Schubert, Skofic, Hori, McCall, Piccolruaz, Woods, Landman, Gelmanov, Verhoeven. The boulders were very nice and we did see many top-outs even from many guys lower down in the list. The biggest sensation was Thilo Schröter from Norway who was #3. Last week, he was featured on 8a as he is #1 in the flash ranking. Five Japanese made it and in fact, they had seven guys Top-21. Complete results

http://www.ifsc-climbing.org/images/World_competitions/Event_regulations/IFSC_Fee_System_2017-18_Approved.pdf

Three of the big names; Akiyo Noguchi, Margo Hayes and Anna Stöhr did not make it to the semi Top-20. Complete results

FloClimbing has based on the critiscism towards the USD 20 monthly to watch the streaming, commented. "We hear you, and we're offering a 7-day free trial for FloPRO subscribers on FloClimbing.com starting later today and lasting for the rest of this month. In addition, the archives for our April events will be available on-demand, without a subscription, three days after each event." Strangely enough, the link where you are supposed to click on to "Join", does not work. The live-streaming starts on Saturday 11.00 European time followed by the finals at 18.30.

IFSC has created a new Media Policy and based on one person who showed the qualifications live on Facebook and was told to stop. "Level 2 (press) may NOT film Semi-Finals/Finals. However, Level 2 may film Qualifications, provided that o Total footage used is no greater than 5 minutes per discipline; o Videos clearly state from which IFSC event, discipline and round they came. Event media desiring additional footage of the competition must negotiate license fees with the IFSC at least 1 week prior to the event. Filming, LIVE broadcasting or uploading footage of IFSC events without prior authorization is strictly prohibited. The IFSC reserves the right to claim for removal and/or monetisation of this content." In practice this means that Udo Neumann will not any longer be allowed to put together analyses from the events. It is not yet known if coaches are still allowed to film.

There will be normal live-streaming at Youtube from the semi and final on Saturday at 11.00 and 18.30, according to IFSC. This is what Floclimbing have posted. "UPDATE: Due to circumstances beyond our control, we will no longer be able to provide live coverage of the IFSC World Cup event in Meiringen on April 8. We apologize for the inconvenience. Visit the IFSC website for details on the event."

More details to come but the live-streaming will be free tomorrow from the semi and final from Meiringen.

79 female and 116 are registered to compete this weekend in the first Boulder World Cup of 2017 which can be compared with 59 and 84 participants last year. This means an increase of 36 % for athletes competing. The live streaming starts 11.00 on Saturday with the semifinals followed by the finals at 18.30. However, you need to pay USD 20 per month for watching the World Cups during 2017. In the world ranking, the first European male is Jeremy Bonder #7. 1. Tomoa Narasaki JPN - Shauna Coxsey GBR 2. Kokoro Fujii JPN - Miho Nonaka JPN 3. Alexey Rubtsov RUS - Akiyo Noguchi JPN 4. Jongwon Chon KOR - Melissa Le Neve FRA 5. Rustam Gelmanov RUS - Petra Klingler SUI