Ao Yurikusa from Japan won the World Cup in Jakarta. It was raining and he only reached hold 29, thus not making it to the final headwall, and only climbing a few moves beyond the rest of the pack. Runner-up was Higuchi Masahiro also from Japan ahead of Sebastian Halenke from Germany, both reaching hold 28. Overall, Japan had four climbers in the Top-5, which was their best ever Lead results. Complete results

Luka Potocar needed to be #7 in order to win overall. This was also his result in the semi so he started second in the final. Ultimately, the 20-year-old did not perform at his best and fell early as he struggled to find the correct beta on the first hard move it seemed. Then he could only wait for someone to fall below him as a tie would rank him below due to countback. The next man out was Raviandi Ramadhan from Indonesia making his World Cup debut in front of his home country. It starts to rain and he looks very nervous, at one point fumbling with quickdraw for close to 15 seconds. The crowd cheers him but suddenly he falls as he misses an incut part of a hold and Luka gets the overall title.

1. Luka Potocar SLO 3 860
2. Taisei Homma JPN 3 835
3. Jesse Grupper USA 3 812
4. Ao Yurikusa JPN 3 239
5. Yannick Flohé GER 2 910

Matilda Söderlund reports on Insta that she together with Sasha Digiulian and Brette Harrington have sent Rayu, 8c MP on Peña Santa (2596 m) in Spain. Their ascent is the hardest ever graded big wall completed by a female team, including Söderlunf and Digiulian both doing the crux pitch. The 610m and 15 pitch long mixed route was established by the Pou brothers in 2020 and it was reported that, "The Basque brothers are convinced that, given the exceptional quality of the route, it will become a classic that will be pursued by the best climbers in the world."

Sasha (29) has been one of the world's leading female climbers for the last 15 years performing at the very highest standard in all disciplines. In 2011, she got the silver in the Boulder World Championship, and in 2013 she sent Era Vella 8c+/9a as well as sending Bella Vista 8c MP. She has also done numerous Boulder as well as big wall FAs. Matilda (30) has previously done one 9a and been #6 in the Lead World Championship in 2012. Brette (30) has repeated and established many hard MPs as well as alpine big walls.

Luka Potocar is very close to securing the overall World Cup title as he made it to the final as #7 while at the same time both Taisei Homma #12 and Jesse Grupper #13 did not make it into the final round and final top-8. If the 20-year-old Slovenian keeps his seventh position, he will get 3 860 points beating Taisei Homma, who has 3 830 points and Jesse Grupper, who has 3 773 points.

From the semi-result, we can see that Nishida Hiremasa won ahead of another three from Team Japan.

Among the women, Chaehyun Seo and Hannah Meul topped the semi-final with Janja Garnbret as #3. Slovenia has three girls that have made it to the final and Japan had five girls in the Top-12.

Allison Vest, who did her first 8B+ this February, has flashed Foxy Lady (8A) in Magic Wood. The boulder has 267 ascents in the 8a database out of which 17 flashes. "I’ve seen so many videos of this boulder so it was cool to finally try it. After touching the first couple of holds from the ground I thought it’d be a good one to try to flash.

We only had 3 days in Magic Wood which wasn’t enough for me to put down some of the properly hard boulders I tried so I’m stoked to go back eventually."

Illya Bakhmet-Smolenskyi, who last year did three 9a's, has done Sever The Wicked Hand (9a) in Frankenjura. "Probably a bit too easy for 9a, but still pretty psyched about the send) a really nice cruxy climb! I climbed it on my 7th go in around 2 days and I am also currently trying the other variation of the route which is supposed to be a proper 9a."

How has your summer been?
The summer was pretty hard, as I tried to compete, get ready for some rock climbing, and was also applying to the University to start studying. As s result, I did really bad on all of the comps and couldn't really go out climbing, so no big project sends were done. But at least I managed to get myself into Uni and moved to the place I really wanted, so one of the big goals could be fulfilled! The Franken trip, sadly, won't last for long as I'll have to leave on 28th (because of the uni documents and deadlines), so the objective now is to send as many climbs as possible before I leave.

What and where will you study?
I will study Computer science in Innsbruck (a German course for a year first though). Hopefully, that'll fit nicely into training and climbing as I will be living next to a great gym and a huge amount of hard crags! The plan is to go outdoors at least every weekend.

Lorenzo Bogliacino has done Trip tik tonik (9a) in Gorges du Loup and the day after he did Tango To Nik 8c (+).

”After climbing Naturalmente (9a+) last autumn I felt very tired, both physically and mentally, so I basically took some months off from rock climbing. I started to train pretty hard from January to March and in the meantime enjoyed the company of my girlfriend, friends, concerts and beers. I packed quite a lot of extra weight (10 Kg) but luckily grew a passion for trecking and mountains and I did a lot of long hikes that helped me to get back in shape. In July and August I did some very easy multipitch​ routes also to get comfortable​ with safety, ropes and so on.

From mid August on I started to feel good on sport climbs also and got back in shape in my home crag of Pian​ Bernardo as usual. I decided to try TTT because it's a great line and not so far from home, which is good with the current oil prices. Basically worked on it for seven days wasting the first three days trying some weird kneebar method that did not work at all.

Claudia Ghisolfi, who was #9 in the Edinburgh WC two weeks ago, has done TCT (9a) at Gravere. The name of the route is a tribute to Tito Claudio Traversa, who died in a climbing accident in 2013 at age 11. (c) Diego Borello

"The route is in Gravere a crag near Turin, my hometown! It was freed by my brother Stefano in 2014. It's a connection between an 8c (you have to do the entire 8c) and the end of the route is an 8b+ (10 hard moves). I did the 8c in 2018 (it was my first 8c) and I did the 8b+ this august so I decided to try the 9a and I did it after another five sessions! So happy! I had shoulder surgery 14 months ago, I can't believe I can climb a 9a after that big injury!"

How come you are not in Jakarta for the last World Cup?
It is too far and the Italian federation decided to ask only Ludovico and Laura to go because they can do podium overall.

What are your next projects and autumn plans?
I don't really know. Now there are the Italian Championships, 1-2 October boulder in Rome and 8-9 October lead in Arco.

"Intense and very physical roof climbing from the depths of the Skull Cave. A significant step up from D-Mouth. This was my main goal for the summer and an excellent challenge for me. Rifle summer camp is in full effect with a slew of good friends always around! Respect to JK, this one is brutal."