David Firnenburg, #2 after Adam Ondra in the Combined ranking game, has done Underground 9a in Arco suggesting that it might be easier. Here is new released video portrait including his brother Ruben. "8c+/9a. Had to get back into lead shape after a lot of bouldering lately. Great roof climbing with challenging boulder in the lower part. Red point crux at the end though. Fell once right below the anchor but sent it right afterwards :-) Have heard that the side pull (where you jam your left pinkie) in the end got better. Can't really prove that because I don't know how it was before. Meanwhile very polished too.

Alex Megos reports on Facebook, "First day out in the Frankenjura again after my Norway trip and straight away sent a project and making the first ascent of "Hockenheimring" 11- (8c)! After the FA I still managed to flash another 8c in the and climbed as well a harder variation of that 8c Dr. Best making it 8c/+ Dr. Best+. Sad to see that there is some Sika in the route to create unnecessary holds...

Adam Ondra has added another 20 climbsand some interesting comments to his scorecard including 1 670 ascents, from his recent trips to Flatanger and Arco. The hardcore hightlights were two 9a's FA in Flatanger, Brunhilde low start and Witchhammer. "A new line bolted by Adam Pustelnik...Really fun climbing, different sections with rests in between, never easy. Flatanger at its best." The double world champion from 2014 visited also Hell, some two hours south from Flatanger by the Trondheim airport, where, among other things, he did the last project giving it 8c+ based on an interesting ethical comment. "The climbing is 8c, but clipping the 2nd bolt adds the grade." The film producer Petr Pavlíček was with Adam and says Adam had also bolted some new lines one out of which includes the biggest dyno ever and it comes after a 9a route. Adam Ondra story of Change 9b+ from 2012.

The interest in speed climbing of the media and the climbers is extremely low. Sure, IFSC makes some participate in order to win prize money or to get an overall ranking but why not upgrade Speed events from vertical 6a's to steep 7a's? The Duel speed climbing in Arco is a great success every year but as you need to clip every second meter and the difficulty is 7c, it is in fact rather slow. Imagine how much more fun it would be to see the Adam Ondra to go footless on steep sections for about ten moves on a 7a route? Such a format could also help us to get into the Olympics and it would also be interesting to train for it in order to climb better in Lead comps. Such a 7a steep speed climbing would be carried out on about 12 meter high walls, where you need to unclip maybe two carabiners. What do you think?

Silvio Reffo has done the second ascent of Super circo Abusivo 9a at Paline, which was bolted and done FA of by Berni Rivadossi one year ago. Here Reffo has made a summer summary. (c) Climbing Technology.

Loic Zehani has done Mavericks, which is his second 8c+ in Orgon in last two weeks. Video. His father Christophe (41) did the FA last weekend. - The first part is a burly 8b+ bolted by Pierre Legrand and Thierry Legallée twenty years ago and after the rest you join an route bolted last spring by Olivier Bert.

During the Youth World Champions, several hundred juniors tested their finger strength and the winner were the Harold Peeters and Brooke Raboutou who actually got the best female result ever. What is very interesting is that the Zlagboard actually seems to be a good measurement to see who has the strongest fingers among lighter climbers. Most of the highest ranked are in between 45 - 60 kg.

Even if leaving gear at the crag is at times not advised and in many cases officially not allowed, it is common practice to do so in many areas. Over the past days, ropes and gear packages have been stolen in Ceüse. This not only does damage to the community of climbers but of course deals a blow to those who have to buy new gear. Some folks lost gear amounting to 1500 euros and even if one might question if leaving all your gear at the crag instead of carrying it up and down every day is okay, one thing´s for sure - stealing is not! So if in Ceüse right now, choose wisely if you want to stash your gear or not - you might get ripped off!

Stuart Littlefair has done the fifth ascent of Steve McClure's Rainshadow 9a at Malhalm and the fantastic story is that he is 39 years old and jumped two grades. On Facebook he says, "There's been too many congratulations about Rainshadow to say thanks to everyone individually. Thanks everyone for the messages - I was quite touched! I still can't quite believe I did it... Thanks especially to Tom Randall - whose training and advice were totally crucial, to Jules for the long term support, to ‪#‎lasportiva‬ for feeding my shoe habit and last but not least to Alex Barrows. If that clown-footed loon can climb 9a I was sure I could. But also he helped a lot with the training, which was nice of him I suppose." © Guy Van Greuning/Nectarclimbing.com