The first suggested 8C+ in the world was Mauri Calibani's Tonino '78 in 2004. Mauro, who was the world champion in bouldering, in 2001, had worked it for a year and thought it was harder than Dreamtime which was 8C at the time. Later on, both Tonino '78 and Dreamtime were downgraded. The next contender for the first 8C+ in the world was, The Wheel of Life, put up by Dai Koyamada, but it was also later downgraded and most climbers liken it to a 9a route. Christian Core's line, Gioia, from 2008, was graded 8C. Adam Ondra thought it was 8C+ but later on, Elias Iagnemma used a kneepad and said 8C/8C+ could be accurate. In 2009 Nalle Hukkataival put up, Livin' Large. Nalle proposed 8C and James Webb confirmed the grade, but more recently, Shawn Raboutou repeated it and suggested 8C+.

As it stands, Daniel Woods' Hyptonized minds from 2010, in the picture, is regarded as the first 8C+ in the world. A few years after climbing it Daniel upgraded it to 8C+, but the first repeat, by Rustan Gelmanov, came after just three days of work, and created some grade uncertainty. However, further repeats by Matt Fultz and David Graham have confirmed the 8C+ grade.

As of today, there exist more than two dozen 8C+ boulders, however, most of them have never been repeated. Daniel Woods has put up four, including the most repeated one, Creature From the Black Lagoon, which has eight ascents. All known repeaters have called it 8C+, although Woods graded it 8C.

When it comes to the first 9A, that title goes to Burden of Dreams by Nalle Hukkataival in 2016. The second 9A proposal was made by Charles Albert who made the barefoot FA of No Kpote in 2018. This line was later repeated by Nico Pelorson and Ryohei Kameyama who both downgraded it. This means that it's possible that the second 9A in the world was put up by Simon Lorenzi, in 2021, with his Soudain Seul (using a book under his kneepad). One repeater, Nico Pelorson, suggested 8C+, whereas another repeater, Camille Coudert, thought the 9A grade was accurate. Later in 2021, Daniel Woods added a sit start to a well established 8c+, thus creating, Return of the Sleepwalker and proposing 9A.

More info on Gripped.com and 99boulders

Tristan Chen, who last week did in just one session, has flashed in Fontainebleau. The beta he got from having watched several videos.

”The climb is totally bodacious, I tried to climb it the day before but it was still wet after a rainstorm so I could only feel the grips and not give rips (tires). Luckily this one also doesn’t require too much micro beta so there are fewer opportunities to mess up the sequence through the bottom. And then I just held to dream and pulled through the mantle.”

Having done Dreamtime last month. How can you explain being in your best shape ever?
I’ve dedicated my entire being to this sport for the last fifteen years, spending all of my free time engrossed in every possible microcosm it has to offer. And I’m glad to see that it’s finally paying some dividends. I also quit my job recently so I’m finally able to travel a bit.

Are you following any specific training regime?
I don’t like to climb in gyms right now since it eats too much precious skin, but I do some daily calisthenics around the house (100 push ups, 100 pulls ups, 100 sit ups).

How long will you stay in Font and when do you plan to start working?Today is my last day in Europe, but I plan on road tripping around the US a bit when I get back (fingers crossed Hueco is cold enough on Monday to finish off Desperanza). And I’ll start working again whenever I run out of money, so in about six-nine months.

Camille Coudert sent Soudain seul (9A) in Fontainebleau, one month ago, after 80+ sessions during two years.

So did you enjoy some nice rest days once you had sent it and what have you been up to the last month?
I went climbing the next day with friends. I have tried some less hard 8C boulders that I'm not far from succeeding; Le pied à coulisse and Le pilier du desert assis. And I've started working on a new very hard project, maybe harder than "Soudain Seul. It is an old project in Fontainebleau, "Imothep assis".

IFSC informs: "The European Championships Munich 2022 (EC2022) Board has agreed to support the decision of the nine participating Federations to not to invite or allow the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes and officials at their events."

The European Championships Munich 2022, will take place from the 11th to 21st August, and it will also be a test event for the new Olympic Combined format.

Andy Lamb has done The Story Of 2 Worlds (8C) in Cresciano. This is the third classical 8C he has done in 2022 after Dreamtime (8C) and The Big Island (8C). In the 8a ranking game, Andy is #3.

"I did the Dagger pretty fast, and then figured out the moves on The Story... so I thought I'd be able to send it. It became a bit of a battle for me though; I think I was going into each session impatient to send, which meant I wasn't focused on learning to flow through the moves and probably didn't rest enough between attempts/sessions.

We went to France for a few weeks, and it was good to climb on some other problems and regain psych. I felt close on Story though, and really wanted to finish it, so returned to Swizzy for a bit. I definitely felt better mentally and stronger in my upper body on it when I returned, but my left knee was pretty sore from all the heel hooking in Font. In my first session back there were some moves that I couldn't do consistently because it was hard to really engage the hooks, which was frustrating. The next days I warmed up my legs a lot and even brought a massage gun to the boulder, and it got my knees feeling good enough to do the moves well."

Niky Ceria reports on Insta that he has done La Revolutionnaire 8C+ in Fontainebleau. It was put up in 2017 by Charles Alber barefoot and it is a sit start to an 8C he established the year before. Niky says he had trouble, due to his size, managing to start properly without touching all the rocks around.

Niky has previously repeated a handful 8C's and one 8C+. He has also established many FAs but without proposing any grades.

Gearjunkie have put together a great article, written by Sam Anderson, that covers the history and controversy of first ascents and grade proposals. Interestingly, most of the new established cutting edge grades have either been up- or downgraded or were not even graded by the first ascensionist. This piece covers, Action Directe, Chilam Balam, Akira, La Rambla, Open Air and Biographie.

As accurately stated in the article, Chris Sharma never proposed a grade for Biographie, nor did Sylvain Millet, who did the first repeat. Patxi Usobiaga made the third ascent and he was the first climber to give it 9a+. Previously, the media had speculated that it was 9a+ due to the time and effort Chris put in. It later also states that everyone has confirmed the 9a+ grade, but this is not completely true. Ethan Pringle marked it, originally, as a hard 9a in his scorecard but then later changed it to 9a+. It's also worth noting that the start nowadays is harder in comparison to how it was first climbed, due to a hold breaking. As it stands, Biographie is one of the most repeated 9a+ in the world and arguably the benchmark for 9a+.

Noteworthy routes not covered in this article are, Hubble and Es Pontas. An upgrade for Hubble has been suggested and Es Pontas is another contender that was put up without a grade.

Hubble was put up by Ben Moon as the first 8c+ in 1990. Years later, repeaters and those that have attempted it have said it should be 9a, which would make it the first 9a in the world. Hubble has also only seen a handful of repeats but recently, a new kneebar was discovered which potentially makes it easier; thus, bringing it back to 8c+. The last repeater ,Toby Roberts, said: "Basically, if you’re short and can get the left kneebar in, it is probably 8c+ but I can’t say for certain."

When it comes to DWS and the cutting edge route, Es Pontas, Chris Sharma left it ungraded. The first 9b grade speculation came from the media. Jernej Kruder has said that it's definitely within the 9th grade of difficulty and Jan Hojer has suggested 9a+.

Time will tell if Ondra's, Silence (9c) will be added to the list of cutting edge climbs that were later either up- or downgraded. Feel free to cast your bet!