William Bosi, who the last year has done 11 8C's, has made the FA of Honey Badger 8C+ in Peak District. He calls it his hardest ever and it includes 22 moves before doing a very scary top-out, where a big foothold popped. The 23-year-old is #1 in the 8a ranking game. Last year he was #11 in the Lead World Championship but in 2022 he did choose to take a break from the competition circuit before going for the Olympics qualifications in 2023.

Gianluca Vighetti sent TCT last year being the first 12-year-old to reach 9a. Stefano Ghisolfi made the FA in 2014, commenting. "I want to dedicate this route to Tito Traversa (that's why I called TCT), because I want everybody will remember him forever."

Vojta Trojan has done Le Cadre Nouvelle Version (9a) in Céüse. "Incredibly happy for taking this one down! Amazing line, but mentally challenging." Adam Ondra did the FA in 2010 avoiding the chipped pockets on .

On the first day of the European Championship in Munich, Janja Garnbret won the Lead qualification meanwhile Manuel Cornu and Nicolai Uznik won the two different boulder qually groups. From the female Lead results we can see that Slovenia had five girls in the Top-12. Laura Rogora was tied #1 on one route but did not participate in her second route due to a finger injury. From the male Boulder results, we can see that France got all their five athletes inte the semi. High ranked guys did not make it to the semi; Simon Lorenzi #23, Maximillian Milne #25, Michael Piccolruaz #25 and Nicolas Collin #27. (c) Jan Virt/IFSC

Marine Thevent reports on Instagram that she has done and Colorado Corridor in Rocklands. In total, the full time lawyer has now done some 75 boulders 8A to 8B. (c) Clement Lechaptois

"For Microcline, I did the stand (7c+) in the first session and I was thinking to return to do Isabell's low start but Clement told me that Dai opened the sit (I didn’t know that the sit start even exists but it was obvious since you have perfect two holds to start!) So I sent it in the 2nd session at the boulder :) For Coco: It fits my style really well! A small compression with a heel hook. It took me one session!

How was Rocklands this year?
So it was my 5th Time in Rocklands and I had no « big expectations» since I had a finger injury from March to June. My only goal was to climb without any pain at all! This year the energy in Rocklands was really cool! I met some really nice and psyched people and it was really nice to see some climbers again in this paradise!

Katie Lamb has done her fifth 8B+, Book Club in Rocklands. During the last month she has also sent , calling it 8A+, and two 8A's. The 23-year-old extends her #1 position in the 8a ranking game, which she has hold for more than two years now.

Victor Guillermin, who this spring got the bronze in a Euro Youth Cup, has done Moksha (8c+) in Pic St Loup. The 17-year-old needed four sessions to take the 50m line down.

What is your next plan?
I don't really know what will be my next plans but I think I'll start to work on the big sister of Moksha: Beyond, Seb Bouin's king line, an incredible 9a+... a real dream line!

How long is the hike to the crag?
It takes approximately 1hours 15minutes ... but the hike is very steep, steeper than in Ceuse😅.

The European Championships, in Munich, starts on 11/8 and finishes on 17-18/8 with the Combined final events. The Combined qualification rankings are based on (World Cup) points gained in the Lead and Boulder events at the beginning of the Championships. In other words, 850 points might be needed to make the Top-8 finals.

In the final, a totally new scoring method will be used and there will also be two zones used in the Boulder round. The max score for both Boulder and Lead will be 100 points each. In short, you get 100 points topping the Lead route and then 5 points will be deducted by each hold. In Bouldering, you get 3 points getting to the first zone, 6 points for the second zone and 25 points for the top. Then the score will be reduced 0.1 point by the number of attempts used. All details explained

One risk with this scoring format is that the overall ranking could more or less be based on just one discipline if the routes and boulders turn out to be significantly too easy or too hard. Another risk is that first place can all but be decided after the boulder event, i.e. Garnbret sends two more boulders than the runner-up. Here is an article that discusses the scenario where the winners of the two disciplines end tied dead last in the overall ranking, commented by the IFSC athlete representative Staša Gejo. If the old (Olympic) ranking system were used, this scenario would result in tied winners. In the Olympics, the rankings were based on multiplication, meaning that uneven results were prefered.

Another interesting twist of the performance based scoring system, compared to the previous ranking based system, could be that the athletes will make more tries in Bouldering. Normally, the athletes often observe and wait for 30-45 seconds until the first try as number of attempts has a huge impact on the result. In the Combined format, there is instead more emphasis on getting a top. A flash gives 25 points whereas doing something on the tenth try still gives 24 points.

Sebastien Bouin reports on Insta that he has done Change (9b+) in Flatanger. (c) Marco Müller

Adam Ondra established the 55m route in 2012 as the first 9b+ in the world. Stefano Ghisolfi did the first repeat and as Seb said in his Insta, they both used knee pads which not Ondra did.

The French climber's ticklist for his one month trip to Flatanger is setting a new standard. 9b+, 9b/+ and three 9a+. Seb has yet to give a grade for Change.

” After sending pitch 1 and pitch 2 independently, my goal was for sure trying the entire route. The only problem was I only had four more days, before my departure to come back home. I didn't know if it would be enough for the entire route. My body started to feel crushed by this cave. I felt tired from the trip. But I wanted to play the game until the very end.

Day 1, the conditions were terrible. It was humid and wet. A lot of the key holds were wet. I decided to not climb and wait for the next day. Day 2, it was still humid, and key holds were a bit dryer, but the humidity didn’t give me confidence. I decided to try the route anyway. It was difficult to wait much longer, knowing I had to leave soon. I passed the first pitch, rested a lot before pitch 2. Then passed the first traverse crux on Pitch 2, and fell straight after that on the second crux. The holds were really humid and almost wet.

Day 3, I still felt really tired from my attempt on the previous day, and I didn't sleep well during the night. I wasn’t planning to climb – I wanted to wait until I felt ready. I went up to the cave to check out conditions and belay my girlfriend on her route. The conditions were exceptional! I was torn in my mind. Should I try it and take advantage of the conditions? or should I wait until I knew I was fully recovered? I finally decided to try the route. I was literaly flowing through the holds, due to the good conditions. It was so much different than the day before. I am happy to say that I made no mistakes and felt the belief that I could make it to the end, and I did! I am not usually a ‘last day, last try’ kind of guy, but this time it happened 🙂 I climbed the route with kneepads, like previous ascensionist Stefano Ghisolfi.”