Stefano Ghisolfi has done the FA of L'arenauta (9b) in . In total, the Italian has now done ten routes 9b and 9b+. On Insta, Stefano says it was bolted 20 years ago and this was his second trip working on it. (c) Sara Grippo

Congrats! Could you fill us in on this new route?
The first part, the less overhanging, is 7a to the first chain. From there starts the roof part, around 20m almost horizontal roof. The first section of the roof is not super hard, around 8b+, and then there is a bad kneebar and from there starts the real challenge. A hard section on pockets with very bad feet, some ten intense moves. The line does not cross any other route, it is one of the purest and most logical ones, straight in the middle of the roof. The place is amazing, close to the beach. (It is actually just 20 meters to a huge and popular beach).

Simon Lorenzi, Lead Youth World Champion in 2016, had his best year ever in 2021 twice being Top-7 in the Boulder WC and making the FA of Soudain Seul 9A (8C+). Interestingly, until 2019 he almost only focused on comps but struggled to get into the semis. Later, he focused more on outdoors and his comp results improved significantly.

Have you improved on comps because of focusing more on outdoors?
My results in the world cup and my performances outdoors are not very linked in my opinion. I performed more outdoor because I spent way more time on the rock during winter. In comps, I did better mostly because I changed the way I train to focus a lot more on my weaknesses (strategy, technic and my mind).

What have you been up to lately?
Since the end of November, the goal was to start the preparation in lead and bouldering for the upcoming world cup season. Unfortunately, I injured my finger so I had to train only on big pinches and slopers on a spray wall because it was the only thing not painful for my finger. Fortunately, I went to Font to try Big Conviction. The three left crimps of the boulder were good enough to take them open hand.

Could you describe a normal training week and one normal session? I train 5 days a week and most of them with my trainer. I always have a good and efficient warm-up to be ready to give everything during the session. Every week is different and the training is more focused on my weaknesses or what I need the most to perform better in competition. The sessions last between 2 and 4 hours depending on what I do.

What are your plans and goals for 2022?
My goals are to perform at the highest level in the world cup in both disciplines and I still have the last project to send in Fontainebleau this season 🙂, "La révolutionnaire " 8C+ from Charles Albert.

The line was found and cleaned by Chris Sharma and Paul Roca a few years ago. After four days of work, Pol Roca Lopez, Vadim Timonov and Sergei Skorodumov made the first three ascents. Vadim comments, "We spent 2-3 sessions each. At first, the last part seemed impossible, but after we spent a session on it, we were able to find several betas! It’s a bit difficult to organize. You need a lot of mats and a stairs, since the first part is not easy and we could spend much more time."

Lucija Tarkuš, who did her first 8c+ at age 16, has done Talk is cheap! (8c) in Osp - Banje in Babna. The picture is from Céüse last year. The Slovenian has won seven European Youth Cups and last year she won twice in Lead and once in Boulder. She participated in five World Cups and her worst result was #27.

How was the process taking it down?
Honestly I think it took me too many tries but less than ten sessions. I fell on the last hard move too many times and I'm happy that I could finally finish it.

What are your plans and goals for 2022?
My main goal will definitely be competitions but it would be nice to send some hard routes in rock too.

How much and how do you train?
Now it is preparation season so we train quite a lot in order to be ready when comps will start. We have a lot of team training and I love it. I train like 5-6 days/week and have 1 or 2 sesh/day. We have 1 or 2 team training a week. I'm in a sports class so it is a little bit easier to coordinate with training.

Fanatic Climbing reports with an interview that Théo Chappex, who turns 40 within a month, has made the FA of Ten Criminals in Valais. In 2018, he opened his first 8C and also started projecting his second which took him some 40-50 sessions. The line is 16 moves long and starts sitting with an 8A+/B sequence followed by an 8B without transition and the end shares the last moves with an 8B+ which he did in 2016. (c) Marie Dorsaz

"Sometimes I was fed up with these movements that I knew by heart, but I had invested too much time to give up… Then finally the motivation returned, with better physical shape, and it finally worked! I suspect that the arrival of a Moonboard at home has something to do with it… During the first session this season I felt that I was more powerful in the cruxs and that gave me confidence."

Allison Vest, who the last three months has done three 8B's (all within four sessions), has sent Show Your Scars (8B) in . "YESSSS! Took me over 10 sessions on this thing. I can't believe it. Had to crimp the last hold so much harder than I even thought was possible. So cool that every session I made progress and got farther... Such a unique projecting experience." (c) Sean Faulker

Allison has been an active competition climber since age ten and she has just focused on outdoors for a couple of years. In the 8a ranking game, the 26-year-old is #2.

Is this the first 8B+ you have tried?
This is the first. You told me to try one so many times I just finally listened ;)

What about that #45 Mitchell T-shirt?
He’s the point guard for the Utah Jazz here in Salt Lake. I don’t know what it is but I’ve done most of my hardest boulders wearing it now. It’s almost a mental cue that it’s game time.

What is next?
This was a big goal for 2022 so I’m excited to already have checked it off. Time to find another project and focus on going to places I’ve never been before to climb new styles.

How do you live your climbing life? How much and How do you train?
It depends. I get really obsessed with single boulders sometimes so for Show Your Scars the past few weeks I’ve been doing very little training and mostly climbing. But I love training so when I’m not focused on a boulder, I’m training a lot.

Alexej Pinchuk has presented statistics of all 9a+ to 9c ascents. A total of 26 climbers from the US have done a 9a+, which can be compared with 21 from Spain and 15 from France, followed by 14 from Germany and Italy. In short, it seems the US has the best climbers in the world.

What is very strange is that there exist only 13 9a+ routes in the USA at the same time Spain has 78 followed by 39 for France and 18 for Italy. In other words, the Americans travel to Europe and especially Spain in order to send a 9a+. Many think that some grades in Spain are on the softer side but possibly the above statistics also suggest that the grades in the USA are harder.

I sent over these stats to Jonathan Siegrist, who has done 18 routes 9a+ and 9b, out of which half in the US. (c) Joe Segretti - Ghetto Booty 9a from Frank Legrand at the Hood, Mt Charleston.

Could it be that several 9a's in the US would have been 9a+ in Spain?
Yes, I mostly agree with this. Our routes overwhelming tend to be quite bouldery - even the longer routes. So they can feel hard! We have very few resistant style 9a and harder. Our cliffs in the USA are simply shorter than in the EU, so if we can find 9a+ usually they have very hard boulder problems when compared with a 50 meter 9a+ in the EU. This doesn’t necessarily mean they are graded wrong, I just think the style is different. Although some probably are sandbagged. Especially the originals in the grade, as usual everywhere.

However, I think these numbers are also slightly deceiving, and also I believe I have an answer for why there are fewer hard routes and ascents in the US.

A. In the US we have the strongest boulderers in the world, no question. Largely because we have excellent, hard bouldering everywhere, but not nearly as much good overhanging limestone. I think you’d find that a good number of those 26 9a+ climbers have only climbed a hyper bouldery route that might be better described as a very long boulder problem. So in other words I think the number of US climbers doing true ‘sport climbing’ style 9a+ is a bit lower.

B. As for the few numbers of hard routes, this is largely because the US simply does not have nearly the quality or the quantity of tall rock that Europe has. Also, the bulk of hard route development (~9a and harder) is all done by a very small number of climbers and it tends to be in obscure, remote places far from a cafe or even a petrol station.

C. I think that for many years in the US we barely had any 9a+ and up, and they were mostly pissed off hard, quite obscure or difficult to reach. So if you were an aspiring 9a+ sport climber you would likely be better off going to Spain and having your choice of dozens of great climbs, quickdraws hanging and within a 5-minute walk from the car as opposed to only a couple of options that all probably require 4x4, a long hike, rattlesnakes, and possibly a couple of days of cleaning to get the route back to climbable.

Do you also agree on that,
From a grade theory perspective, you could possibly use Action Direct as an example of what you say. It is so specific and it is very hard to send after like 20 sessions... and even if you send...you have not gotten much stronger doing other 9a's. However...if you do an endurance 9a...it is kind of fun to spend 20 sessions on it and after the send, you get rewarded as you have gotten stronger on this style and could repeat many others :)

Well, I for sure agree with this! I have learned to love our bouldery, strength endurance style routes here but what I love to climb are the 50-meter beauties where you can really fight for it and get super pumped. I wish we had more of this style in the USA. But thankfully I am fortunate enough that I can fly to the EU once or twice a year and get my fix.