Soratu Anraku from Japan and Dohyun Lee from Korea won the two qualification groups, followed by runners-up, Adam Ondra and Jongwon Chon (pictured). Four tops were needed to make it to the semifinal. Around 1,000 spectators were on hand to watch the qualis, so a sold out finals likely awaits.
Complete results (c) Vladek Zumr

Mejdi Schalck and Hannes van Duysen, the #1 and #4 in the World Cup ranking, have surprisingly chosen not to participate.

Stasa Gejo and Hannah Meul were tied winners of one group in the Brixen Boulder World Cup and Julia Kruder won the other. Stasa says she can not explain what happened but everything worked out fine. "You know, it is about the type of boulders and also a little bit of luck. We will see what happens tomorrow", firing off a big smile. From the Complete results, we can see that neither Oriane Bertone and Janja Garnbret, who were #1 and #2 in Prague, or Brooke Raboutou did participate. (c) outThere Collective

"It's great to be back. All the routes were nice and this is more than a competition to me. Everyone is friendly and it is like being part of a big family. IFSC has been very supportive and they have actually sent some World Cup volumes to me. My dream is to qualify to the Olympics and this is more than a competition to me. I want to represent the Iranian women and show what can be possible." (c) Vladek Zumr

Where and how do you train?
I run my own new climbing gym together with my husband. We actually skipped the wedding party and put all the money in this gym. It is very good and has all angles.

I train two days on for 4-5 hours followed by a rest day. I am also a coach and an instructor. We are a big group of passionate climbers who train hard. Some of the climbers I train are here competing too.

What is coming up next for you?
I will compete also in Innsbruck and then I will return back home. I want to focus on my climbing and my Olympic dream. I hope everything will turn out great and I plan to return to Europe this summer for the Lead World Cups. All I want is to train and focus on climbing and keep my Olympic dream alive.

Daniel Woods and James Webb sent Insomniac (8C+) last year. Here is the Webb interview and the Woods article

Owen Whaley, who previously has done two 9a's, has done the FA of "Man-Bod" (9a) in Mt Charleston.

"Man-Bod” is a link-up between two existing Andy Raether routes at Robbers Roost. The climbing on the route is extremely diverse, with powerful moves at the bottom and harder technical climbing at the top. The moves were familiar to me because of climbing the two sections previously, however, linking them proved to be much more of a full-body challenge. I had a great experience trying this route and am excited to continue trying the hard lines at the crag. Robbers Roost is turning into quite the destination for hard sport climbing."

David Graham reports on Insta that in March he did the FA of Celestite (8C+) in Valle Bavona. The 41-year-old made his first 8a headline in 2000 and has since been one of the world's strongest climbers. Amazingly, he had his best year ever last year with two 8C+’s and seven 8C’s. (c) Rainer Eder

”I approached this problem with zero expectations every session as I really wanted it, but the style of climbing required patience, balance, and a laser sharp focus, hard things to bundle all together; there was no just "trying hard".

After three sessions trying to progress from the start, always making it a move farther, in a magical moment, after a crazy fight, I found myself standing at the top. Astonished to have not drawn out the process, a habit of mine, my first thought was to question its difficulty. Could I climb something of this level that quickly? If it had taken another ten days of making mistakes, I'd have zero hesitation with the proposal, yet, I often doubt my strengths and abilities.

If compare it to all the lines I've climbed, it seems like where it belongs, unless I missed some crucial easier beta. I'm very proud of my climbing on this one, it's majestic, climbs beautifully, and is an amazing addition to the valley.”

How can you still progress after 20+ years as a pro climber?
I feel stronger honestly! 😅😅😅, 🤔🤔🤔. Not sure why?? Maybe smarter??? Healthier lifestyle. Ah just eating better, no partying, lots of good rest!! Better attitude about climbing, more patient and also less concerned with conditions. Always finding new solutions, not getting angry. In the past, I would get much more frustrated when I would fail or not do well. These days I think I'm so used to failing that I'm surprised when I succeed. I do boulders that are really my antistyle too. So I assume they should be hard but I think it really helped my mental game, to push longer and harder. Never get pissed, it is not wise!!! I am feeling strong!!

Justin Deschamps has sent Condé de choc (9a) in Entraygues. (c) Lilian Moretti

"I tried for the first time Condé de choc last summer, after having already sent all the 8th graded routes of the sector. I struggled in the lower crux section and especially on this classic jump dyno. I came back stronger this year and tried the route with Adrian Houbron. I found an alternative beta to avoid this impossible dyno (6b for Adrian 😂), using an intermediate tiny crimp instead of jumping. Adrian sent this route quite quickly and I came back the following weekend with better conditions to follow his example. I fell two times at the last move and I managed to stick it in an insane fight at 8 pm to send my first 9a. The vibe was crazy at the crag and my friends supported me a lot during these runs. Now time to join Tanguy (Merard) in Le Pamphlet, [for] the project there." 🤙

Sebastien BOUIN has made the third repeat of Alex Megos’ in Céüse. In total, the 30-year-old has now done more than a dozen routes 9b to 9c. (c) Clarisse Bompard

”Bibliograpghie was a big goal for this year. Since Alex did the first ascent of this one, I was really psyched to try something really hard from someone else, here in France. Even if Céüse is very far away from my own natural climbing style. I was really motivated to go through the process on Bibliographie. I am usually alone when trying my projects in France and not many people try them, but Biblio was something different. You know, a 9b+ in my ‘local’ area, already with 3 ascents by top climbers... it was obvious that I had to try it. During the process, I fell 11 times at the top of the route (after the main crux). I think I underestimated this last part of the route. It doesn't look or feel that hard when you do this single section in isolation. Yet, when you are coming from the ground, it was way different. I remember Sean Bailey actually fell 13 times up there, so I am happy that he still holds the record ;-).

Conditions were quite challenging this year. It was raining almost every day, and we had to wait, patiently, for a good window to make an attempt. Bibliographie is not a route that particularly suits my strengths, so it was a great challenge to do a 9b+ on tiny crimps for me. But, now it's time to go back to something a little more my style ;-).”

Mejdi Schalck has participated in three out of the four first Boulder World Cups in 2023 and the 19-year-old is in a reasonably comfortable pole position. Counting only the three best results, Tomoa Narasaki is 535 points behind and Dohyun Lee is 595 points behind. The following two weekends, the last two events will take place in Brixen and Innsbruck. As it stands, it's Mejdi title to lose... Complete ranking.

Jana Svecova, who last year did her first two 8B+, has done Kocour v botách, z cíga potáh (8A+) in Hlubočepské plotny, video.

Can you tell us more about the ascent?
Last weekend, we visited a small crag near Prague. Actually, it is only about 10 minutes away from the center of Prague, and it's really cool to find such good climbing in a city this big. Anyway, we heard that there might be an 8A+ boulder which is going through small crags, so I immediately thought of trying to flash it. On Thursday, we went to check out the holds, and I felt quite confident that I could actually flash it. We returned to the boulder the next morning because of better conditions. I prepared myself and gave it a flash try. Unfortunately, my hand slipped in the last move, and I fell off. Ah, it's such a bad feeling to be so close to flashing an 8A+. In the end, after a couple of tries, I managed to send the boulder. I also discovered another beta and ended up skipping some moves. If I had known this beta before the flash try, I might have been able to flash it because it felt super easy. On Sunday, we went to check out another project in the area that hasn't been climbed yet. I gave it a few tries, and I think it could be an 8B boulder at least, so we definitely want to come back one day. På