Dave MacLeod has had a couple of very good days in Magic Wood climbing Practice of the wild 8C. He also repeated Steppenwolf 8B in 3 tries and made a quick ascent of Dark Sakai 8B. A couple of weeks earlier he climbed Shallow Water to Riverbed 8B+. Click here for his blog with a video. Dave should be considered to be one of the best overall climbers in the world having been on the cutting edge in trad, winter and ice climbing. auther having publish two training books and here is his 8C story which includes dropping six kilos.

1. Alexey Rubtsov RUS 177 - Shauna Coxsey GBR 300 2. Rustam Gelmanov RUS 165 - Melissa Le Neve FRA 203 3. Kokoro Fujii JPN 155 - Miho Nonaka JPN 153 4. Jan Hojer GER 152 - Akiyo Noguchi JPN 147 5. Tomoa Narasaki JPN 138 - Fanny Gibert FRA 131 Complete results.

The upgraded Quantum is a bit wider and the heel is a bit higher so now it fits my foot perfectly. At the same time, the heal is softer so I can belay standing with half the foot outside the shoe. After the first day I thought they were too big as they were just too comfortable but after ten days, they have not stretched at all and as they are stiffer they are about to become my new favorite shoe for standing on micro-edges. Possibly, it could also relate to the fact that they are relatively pointy instead of rounded. At the same time, they have the fastest lacing I have ever tried, where it is good enough just to pull at the ends of the laces. More info here.

Martina Cufar become the World Lead Champion in 2001 and since than, Slovenia has been one of the leading nations in climbing. In 2006, she onsighted her first 8b and last week, the 39-year-old onsighted her first ever 8a+, Allo ctave, ici Bemol in Verdon. She got the tip from Bruno Clement - Graou, who has established a new sector there, Baume aux Couillones. - Graou told me one evening that he equipped one line in the bottom of which should be written " For Martina", because there are many small crimpers and it's technical. smile emoticon So I went in one day and did it on sight. He was right , it was for me. Otherwise I try to keep my shape with climbing when I can but for sure it's less than before I had my two boys, Tommy and Paco. It's quite a job to entertain them! In the last time I climb often in Bionnassay (half an hour drive and half an hour walk up). It's the place I like, but the problem is that I did all the routes until 8b...So I got myself on the 8c now, a route with a crux with a long move, boys do a jump, that I was not able to do for years (Well I went to check once a year) ,but in december I found the solution. Well I do the move once or twice in three attempts, so I don't really know if I am close ot not. but I enjoy climbign on it. I hope I have some luck and do it this year,:-) I try to climb 3 - 4 times a week, 1,5h or 3 in the rock. I do kundalini yoga every morning when everybody sleeps, from 6 30 to 7 30 - 8.

Angie Scarth-Johnson has reclimbed Welcome to Tijuana 8c in Rodellar, which she already did last year. However, some locals did say that she had used some eliminated holds one meter to the left of the original line, disclaiming the ascent. Kind of a strange thing for a 10-year-old setting a new world standard, getting the info that it was prohibited to use some small shallow pockets where no other can get their fingers into. Anyhow, now Angie has done the straight up elimination 8c. Angie is from Australia and she is on a three-month-long road trip to Europe being home-schooled by her non-climbing parents. In March she did an 8c in Margalef.

Sasha Gerzha has done his second 9a, Estado Critico in Siurana. The picture is from La Rambla 9a+, which will be his next project. - I had a couple of tries in January but just for check the moves and went back to St Petersburg for training. Then I came again in March and was close to send after one week or 10 days but get a cut finger and it took around one another week to recover. I didn't climb for this period and than I start again with no power after the rest! And the weather started to be hot! So it was all the time something wrong

Said Belhaj has finished his longest project ever and done his first 9a+, Chris Sharma's Papichulo in Oliana. Full story on Said's website. (c) Walker Emerson - I don’t think I’ve ever had a route this dialed and rarely had to fight so hard. At the headwall, after the hardest sections, I knew that I could do it if I just didn’t hesitate. And if the 1st section is my anti style, up there I was in my element climbing a muerte. This is what I’ve done and trained for all my life: go fast, go 100%, let go of anxiety and totally tune in with the freedom of moving on rock. There is always a kind of magical feeling when you suddenly succeed with something you kept on failing on before. If I would to pick a route based on the grade (a phenomenon that I’ve noticed: people climbing grades, not routes), ”Papi” would probably be pretty low on the list. The whole first section is harder the shorter you are and I’m terrible on resistance on small holds. A steep route in a cave would’ve been more in line with ”what I’m good at”. But climbing has never been about that: we climb to challenge our selves, it has never been about making climbing easy. Climb routes that we find beautiful and some of them talk louder to us than others.

Daniel Woods put up Hypnotized minds as an 8C in 2010. Already in 2012, 8a started to say that It is time to step up/Upgrade to 8C+, using Hypnotized minds as an example. The upgrade suggestion was based on the fact that some of top guys had tried it with no success. Some 15 years ago, 8a said (since we wanted to present as correct news as possible) that many Boulder grades outside Font were deflated. Complaints were put forward saying that it was only the repeaters who can suggest downgrading or upgrading, in regards to Hypnotized minds. The simple reason why 8a was able to predict grades so well is the Grading theory we have followed since 2000. "Rating is based on individual subject suggestions - and confirmed by facts and results by the climbing community." Sure feelings and opinions are important but in the long run, the success ratio for the community is a better measurement. Later we have precised it even more with the Time Comparison scale. It should be mentioned that when we talked to Daniel Woods some years ago, he said that Hypnotized minds could surely be an 8C+, which many of his friends speculated in but he wanted to be absolutely sure before suggesting the new standard grade. There are many more 8C's that should be upgraded as the community has clearly taken huge steps since the first 8C was established some 15 years ago. Within a couple of years, we should have the first 9A and one contender might be Woods's new link-up project.

Last year we at the Spanish 8a.nu site had a long chat with Mikel Linacisoro in this vídeo interview just before he became the European Youth Champion. There he expressed that he wanted to send his first 9a before his 15th birthday. However, being focused on the comps at that moment he had to wait to have that goal completed until last Sunday when he was finally able to clip the chains of Begi Puntuan, 9a in Etxauri. He started trying it at the beginning of last December, projected it for two weekends before Christmas and he almost sent it during those holidays. Then, he just needed two more weekend trips to the crag to bag it. This way he's set a Spanish record again, being the youngest (he's 15 now) to send an 8c and an 8c+ back in those days and a 9a now. When we interviewed him for the first time three years ago he had redpointed an 8b+ and onsighted an 8a+. That same year and just before turning 13 he fired-off his first 8c with 'White Zombie' in Baltzola and one year after he reached the 8c+ grade with 'Koldoren Mundua' in Araotz. **Now you can read the interview we had with the Basque yesterday, where he tells us more about his new step up.