Knowing when to use stiff shoes and when to use soft shoes, as well as how to size them, can sometimes feel like quite the dilemma. As climbing shoe technology and our understanding of performance evolve, the growing trend has been to no longer downsize your climbing shoes to the smallest possible size. On technical, vertical and gently overhanging climbs using a stiff, comfortable shoe will often boost your foot endurance and help you stave off foot-fatigue, while also giving you a few extra cm of reach. Not a bad thing if you're a diminutive climber or find yourself shrinking a little with age (the author falls into both of these categories). That being said, strong toes still have their place. Using a soft shoe for training sessions, steeper climbs and warming up won't do your climbing any harm! Feel free to add any thoughts you have or any climbing shoe hacks you've discovered over the years.

Mathieu Bouyoud has done the FA of On a tous au fond du mental (9a) in Grotte des eaux mortes. “One more project done in the small cave near my home. I bolted this line four years ago but I never saw the line very dry. This year is different...all is dry with very hot temperature! It s a big roof with 3D climbing. I have tried this line during some ten sessions over many seasons. So good to finally do it”.

In total, the 32-year-old has done 32 routes 9a and harder. During the last 12 months he has done two 9a+ and four 9a’s meaning it is his best year ever.

Austria dominated the European Lead Cup at home-turf in Dornbirn getting four golds. In the female Youth A they had four girls in the Top-5 ranking. It should be mentioned that France and Switzerland did not participate, probably as they wanted to prepare for the European Championship the next week.

03: Sunniva Öyre-Eide NOR : Lovro Crep SLO
05: Annika Stöckl AUT : Raffael Grubber AUT
07: Flora Oblasser AUT : Julian Schrittwieser AUT

In the male Lead ranking of 2018, Sean Bailey was #18 and the highest ranked from the USA. The second highest was #43. In 2019, Sean had advanced to #9 and Jesse Grupper was runner-up as #21, working full time as an Engineer. During those two years, Colin Duffy got a gold and a silver in the Youth World Champions.

After the two first Lead World Cups in 2022, they are #1 and #2 followed by two athletes from Team Japan, who actually has four in the Top-8 ranking. Europe has had their worst start in the male Lead WC since it started in 1991. At the same time in should be mentioned that Adam Ondra has not taken part and that Jakob Schubert and Stefano Ghisolfi have just done one event.

Janja Garnbret was the only athlete to top out the final route and won her 20 Lead WC victory. Including getting the gold in also two World Championships, she has won 55 % of all the 40 WC's and WCHs she has participated in. Runner-up was Brooke Raboutou and then Natalia Grossman completed the podium. Among the male, Tasei Homma got his first-ever WC victory ahead of Jesse Grupper and Colin Duffy. Male results and Female results (c) Lena Drapella/IFSC

Homma: “In Innsbruck I felt very sad because of my result, so this time I felt that I need to try my best. First of all I tried to concentrate, just to be myself. In the semi-final I didn’t feel so good about my performance and after the semi-final I got a lot of messages from my friends in Japan, so that’s why I did my best in the final, because of the cheering of my Japanese friends.”

Garnbret: “I feel amazing, this was one of the best routes on the circuit. I feel that I was climbing with flow and just enjoying myself on the route. I was also climbing super fast, so I enjoyed it very much.

In Innsbruck I felt kind of rusty because I haven’t had any comps except Meiringen this year, but then after semi’s I felt in the flow so I could do the same in Villars, so it feels amazing. I feel that this was easier than Innsbruck. Innsbruck was really the hardest route I’ve ever climbed. This one I feel like at observation it looked harder, but the hardest part was just the last two moves. I really enjoyed it. It had some tricky parts where you had to be careful, but nevertheless I enjoyed it.”

Janja Garnbret was the only athlete to top the semifinal route in Villars. Runner-up was Chaehyun Seo and the third was Brooke Raboutou, which also was the final ranking in Innsbruck last weekend. Among the male, Jesse Grupper got the highest ahead of Colin Duffy. Interestingly, Team Japan got four males and two females to the finals, which are their best results. Team USA continued their excellent results and got two plus two to the finals. Overall, there will only be three females and two males from Europe in the finals, which just might be the worst ever result for the Europe that has dominated the Lead World Cup scene for like 30+ years. Male results and Female results

Ao Yurikosa, who was #2 in Innsbruck, won the Lead qualification ahead of Colin Duffy. Jakob Schubert and Stefano Ghisolfi did not participate, the latter commenting on Insta, "Covid got me (probably in Innsbruck), so I'm in isolation, but at home this time 🤷‍♂️."

Among the females, Brooke Raboutou was the only one to top out both routes and runner-up were Laura Rogora and Chaehyun Seo. In total, 84 males and 78 females participated. Female results and Male results (c) Lena Drapella/IFSC

China got all three podiums in the male Speed finals in Villars and remarkably, all were debutants in the World Cup. Long Jianguo won the gold in the finals finishing at 5.23 against Wu Peng 5.24. Kiromal Katibin, who set two world records in the qualification, fell in the quarter final.

Among the female, Deng Lijuan won stopping the clock at 6.87, beating her teammate Niu Di who slipped.

Luisa "Lulu" Deubzer has done Speed Integral (9a) in Voralpsee. The 28-year-old was one of the very best Lead competition climbers in the world at age 15. Two years later she did her first 8b and stopped competing. Last year she did her first 8c (interview), and this spring she has done two more as well as the trad climb , in spite of having struggled with some injuries.

What is next climbing wise for you and what do you think would be most important for us climbers to change/improve in order to reduce our footprint?
I guess I can stop sport climbing for a bit now… This summer I’ll hopefully get to enjoy plenty of moderate multi pitch climbing and mountains. As Speed really was this life-time dream of mine, I want to bask in this feeling for a bit and the plan therefore is to not get sucked into the next big project right away… Let’s see how that goes.

To your second question, I’m clearly not in the position to tell others what to do, as I am myself far from perfect. Climbers, just like anyone else, all have different lifestyles. Therefore, I think it makes sense to look at your individual footprint to identify which area you still have the biggest room for improvement and how you could and want to adapt your lifestyle accordingly.

Collectively speaking, I think there is still a lot of room for denormalising plane travel to go climbing. I feel like the narrative around this has already changed quite a bit in the last years, but it is still somehow ingrained in our culture that is is „cool“ to discover far away places on your holiday, to escape winter, to chase good conditions… Not to say you can’t take the plane to go on a trip, I just think it shouldn’t be the socially acceptable default anymore in these times… Every time, someone decides against a trip by plane and talks about the environmental reasons for it, it changes the narrative a bit. To me, the French/Belgian Crew sailing to Yosemite is one of the most inspiring things this year, especially with Sebastien Berthe having such a hard objective. Of course, there are a lot of other climbing culture specific habits that could require change, the traveling one is just the first one that comes to my mind. A couple years ago, I tried to order my thoughts around this topic a bit in the form of words if anyone is interested to read further: https://talesofhillsandrails.weebly.com/faq Nothing of this is novel, just a collection of discussion points around this.

Fanatic climbing has published a long interview.

"I like getting my ass kicked and expanding my comfort zone, that’s why I really enjoy that climbing in the wider sense is so varied. I have broadened my skills in the other forms of climbing quite a bit over the last years as a member of the current all-female ‘Young Alpinist Group’ of the German Alpine Club (although I still suck at these various forms of Alpinism). Depending on the season, weather and motivation, I have periods where I ice and mixed climb more, do multipitches or a mountain here and there. At the end of the day, however, my strengths do lie in sport climbing." Photo: DAV- Silvan Metz

In the Villar Speed qualification, Kiromal Katibin from Indonesia set two World Records. In his first run, he did 5.09 and then 5.04 in his second race, video. Runner-up was Long Cao from China with 5.22. Besides the several World Records in 2022, the level has been pushed significantly and 5.58 was the cut to make it to the Top-16 finals tomorrow. In total, 41 males did below six seconds in the Vilar qualifications. Complete results

In the Speed World Cup in Villars in 2018, the fastest time was 5.80 and 6.55 was enough to make it to the Top-16 finals. If we exclude the Russians from the 2018 events, 6.79 would have been Top-16.

Among the females, Di Niu from China won the qualification with 6.91 and 7.78 was good enough to make it to the Top-16 finals. In Vilars 2018, 7.98 was the fastest time in the female qualification and 9.01 was needed to make it to the Top-16 finals.