Stefano Ghisolfi, who previously has done two 9b+', reports on Insta that he has done the first repeat of Bibliographie 9c in Céüse. Ethan Pringle bolted it in 2009 and last year Alex Megos did the FA. "PLEASE DON'T WAKE ME UP, like in every fairy tails last day was actually the best day. I'm crying 😭😭😭" (c) Adri Martinez

Stefano has worked and documented the process the whole summer on his Youtube channel, in between competing in the World Cup. With just one event left in Kranj in three weeks, the Italian is in the lead. In the 8a ranking game, Stefano will be #2 after Adam Ondra, once he has logged it. More info to come.

Lukas Sager has done Yeah Man! 8b+ in Gastlosen. It is 300 meters long, has four pitches 8a to 8b+, out of which the second last pitch is the hardest. It was bolted in 1999 by François Studemann and Guy Scherrer. The individual pitches were freed in 2004 by Josune Bereziartu und Riker Otegi. The 1st redpoint all lead in a day happened in 2010 by Giovanni Quirici. This spring the 16-year-old spent four months in Margalef out of which half of the period by himself, following his school via the internet. Already then he said that once he was back home, he had some multi-pitch projects in mind. (c) Dor Roda

"Every summer I go to the Gastlosen area. I am a “local”. I know the best places to sleep, to eat and of course to climb over there. In 2019 I met Cedric Lachat in the parking lot. He was on his way to climb some hard multi-pitch routes in Switzerland. Later I saw him on Yeah man. I fell in love with the line immediately. It took us 2 years to organize ourselves and take this project really seriously. Last summer, in this first Covid summer, I went to the Gast just to climb on the usual crags at the bottom of the faces. Thanks to my father and Beal I managed to collect all the gear we need in 2020. My goal was always clear: climb in red point all the lengths in one day. It is really not easy to climb, to eat, to rest and sleep with your father. Ther was a lot of tensions between us. I quit the Gruyère area to catch up with my mother. I came back with her to do a 2 days session in the route. She is quieter. Dor Roda was also a precious help for this adventure. He came 2 times. At the beginning to set up the static ropes and the first days in the route and he came back for the last part as well.

Resting was also a part of the process. I am not used to work a route endlessly, every single day in the route count. I learned a lot how to jumar and belay down on static ropes. The first day I have climbed to 4 pitches, then I work on pitches 5, 6, 7. And so on… After only 5 days in the route and a lot of rest days in between, I decided to make an attempt for my 6th day.

On Saturday 21st of august, I stood at the top after an incredible day in the route. I needed to twice climb the 6th and 8th lengths. The 6th is not hard grading (8a) but it is in your head: sensations, foot work, jump, small crimps… The 8th is the 8b+, I felt right at the top, needed to come back at the belay, recompose myself and send it. I was so engaged that I skipped 2 quick draws. I am so glad to stand at the top with my father and Dor."

Cody Roth has done Puro Dreaming in Arco which he thinks is 8c+. It was bolted by Alfredo Webber and originally thought to be 9a but possibly due to better kneebar technics, some have started calling it 8c+.

"I’ve been living in Arco since October. I work full time for Vertical-Life, whose main office is just an hour and some change from Arco. I’m able to do a lot of my work from home and with there being so many options close to Arco, I’m able to climb after work a few days a week. On average I probably climb three days a week. I haven’t climbed in a gym in over a year, but that will probably change come winter. I hadn’t tried Pure Dreaming in probably a month prior to doing it first go last week. It had been too warm for Massone, and I like having multiple projects and also spending some days onsighting and just messing around. I think if you solely focus on one project at a time, your climbing narrows and you lose your mental sharpness.

I think I’ve done close 10 8c’s or harder since moving to Arco. On all but one, as soon as I’ve done what was the barrier move for me, I’ve gone on to send. So, I guess I’ve been doing an okay job of converting the chances I get! Reini’s Vibes felt harder than Pure Dreaming, which is why I wouldn’t claim it at 9a. It has one move that’s a bit riskier, but it has better rests and requires less resistance."

Pau Galofré has done his first 9a by repeating Alex Megos Pornographie in Céüse. "It was like a three weeks process. A lot of falls in the last part. There are two sections with a rest in the middle and then small and sharp holds. Very happy with the result finally." (c) Adri Martinez

Alex Garriga, who previously has done seven 9a+', has done the fifth repeat of Jonathan Flor's Ali Hulk extensión total sit start suggesting a personal 9a+ grade. In 2019, Alex did the stand start of the 30-meter long roof also graded 9a+. The sit start he just did adds a 15 moves 7B+ boulder but he says easier sequences and better rests due to the use of kneebars have made the original route easier.

"It is not the same route as Dani did." Originally, Dani Andrada opened most of the routes in the Ali Baba cave, without using knee pads. Insta

Michael Piccolruaz, #15 in the Olympics, has posted critical comments on his Insta in regards the boulder setting in the Olympics. "Talking to the other competitors ALL (I've talked to most of us 20) agreed that this was not enjoyable and that it's sad that this is the way bouldering is being presented on the biggest stage in climbing history!"

In the qualification, Alex Megos was #6 by doing 1 Top and 4 Zones. In the final, five out of seven flashed the first, just one did the second and all flashed the zone of the third. In spite of that poor results for the athletes, Michael's critic does not mention the difficulty but only the style. "Walking on volumes, pressing, jumping, pressing again, some weird upsidedown bat hanging and to finish it off a lucky punch throw into a crack. And where is the climbing???"

Do you have any thoughts on how this could be changed and improved in the future?
Well the setters should simply consider setting more powerful and proper climbing boulders where you actually get to do a few moves... I know this kind of boulder is often difficult for them to set because many setters don't have the physical level to test and climb the hard physical boulders. So setting technical and coordinative boulders is obviously easier for them to judge the difficulty. One way to improve this situation would be to allow more young setters into the international setting team. There are so many motivated and strong young setters out there who would love to set for a world cup and also learn. From the experienced setters. But the IFSC and the current setters make it so incredibly hard for new setters to join the team...

Do you think this is also the common understanding among the competitors?Well I'm sure some fellow competitors think like this. And I don't want to say that we should just get powerful boulders. For instance, I thought the final at the Olympics was great in regards to the styles they set.

But the difficulty of the final boulders was very bad, one being way too easy and one way too hard (with a useless bonus).

Alex Ventajas has done his third 9a in 2021, Autoengaño in Rodellar. (c) Pablo Toco

"I tried the route for five or six days. I think 13 attempts in all. Achieve this goal on time it’s great satisfaction and it means a lot to me. I tried the route from the first day we arrived, there were some friends that gave me some betas and at the first attempt I managed to do all the moves, but it was hard to put them all together because my body wasn’t trained enough for such physic climb. I knew it would be a great challenge because I had just two weeks to try it. The hardest part was to manage the pressure of this deadline and to organize well the rest days. Furthermore, I procured a really painful skin injury at one leg with a kneebar I had to use in the first crux and I had to stop trying the route for a couple of days. Trying different lines help me disconnect a little and gain some endurance. Finally, I managed to do that crux with a different beta that allowed me to use less the right knee and the next day, after two falls, I sent it."

You did three 8c+' in 2018 but then just 8c's until 2021 when you have done three 9a's. Why is that?
Unfortunately I didn’t have the possibility to try new hard routes because I had already done almost every route in the climbing sectors I could reach from my home. I didn’t have a car and I didn’t have the possibility to travel. That wasn’t a good period for me. I couldn’t improve and I couldn’t try something motivating. Since I moved to Italy things changed, I had thousands of new routes around and I progressively regained shape and motivation.

Why did you move to Italy?
It wasn’t something I planned. My girlfriend is from Italy. In the beginning, she should have moved to Spain, but with the covid situation things changed: she started working in Italy and I decided to follow her and I found a job there. She supports me more than everyone and thanks to that I have the opportunity I didn’t have before.

It seems most climbers finally accepted that Climbing only got one set of medals in Tokyo and are pleased that we will get two sets in Paris 2024. Skateboard was also a new Olympic sport in Tokyo but for some reason, two sets of medals were given out for the ones doing the best tricks in Street as well as in Park, which are quite similar disciplines. In practice, this means that there were 80 skateboard athletes participating in Tokyo but only 40 Climbers, out of which seven were Speed specialists. Another difference was that the max quota per country in Skateboard was three per discipline and gender in Skateboard instead of two in Climbing.

When it comes to Paris 2024, Skateboard will have two sets of medals and 22 athletes participating, i.e. 88 spots available. This can be compared with 72 athletes for Climbing, as there will be 32 in Speed and 40 in a Lead/Boulder Combination. It should be mentioned that in Tokyo, 18% of the Climbers could be considered Speed specialists, while in the Paris 2024 Olympics 44% of the Climbers will be Speed specialists.

These 44% Olympic athletes can be compared to a possible 0.001% of all climbers in the world focusing on Speed. Sure, there will be many more training and competing in Speed in the coming years but that would also be the case for any constructed Olympic sport. Personally, I think there is a golden opportunity for any Climbing beginner to start a quest for a Speed gold in Paris 2024. If I were a performance-focused national climbing coach, I would have focused on Speed because the chances for great results are much bigger in Speed. Going back five years or so, there were probably only about 32 climbers, i.e. the number of participants in Paris, who dedicated their life to Speed climbing.

The dilemma with the second set of medals in Climbing in Paris is that it is still a combination, i.e. Bouldering and Lead. Surely there are a few athletes that have shown that such a combination is possible, but by checking the 2019 World Cups we can say that it was the Bouldering experts that suffered the most in the Combined endurance game during the qualis as well as in Tokyo. Furthermore, in general, the results for the Olympians in the World Cup 2021 have been incredibly bad and you might wonder if this Combined thing is fair for our sport and the athletes trying to do it.

Jain Kim from South Korea, who has won 30 World Cups, was watching the male Olympic Boulder final and was like many fascinated by the artistic work of the third boulder. But when the commentator Jonny Bryan described it she got very upset, "...created by the Japanese and french route setters to give an image of a Japanese rising sun." (c) Leo Zhukov

Jain Kim has explained on Insta why she got upset and has sent her complaint to IFSC. The reason she wanted the bring it up is the missing awareness and that there was no apology from any part for the unintentional hurt feelings." A rising sun flag is the military flag used by Japan during WWII, which symbolizes Japanese militarism. To the victim countries, the Rising Sun Flag is no different from Hakenkreuz, the symbol of the German Nazi for the victim countries. Therefore, the Rising Sun Flag is always an extremely serious issue between victims and Japan, including South Korea."

Has there been any reactions in the general South Korea media?
There were many media articles news already in Korea and one famous professor has officially appealed to the IOC.

According to this article, South Korea formally, in 2019, requested IOC to ban the flag in the Tokyo Olympics.

IFSC has responded to Jain that it was a mistake by the commentator and that none of the boulders was intended to portray any symbols. Jain has answered that she finds it very strange that a British commentator could pick up that symbol without being told so, as she herself did not see it before the commentator announced it.

It should be noted that both Jain and myself have tried to get in contact with Mr Bryan without success. 8a has previously acknowledged that he did a very good job especially during the Lead final, having full control over all mathematical scenarios.

It should also be mentioned that this boulder was probably also the worst ever set in an IFSC competition when it comes to difficulty. Everyone reached the zone on the first attempt but then only Adam Ondra could control the following hold once. All others fell directly after the zone, although there were another 3-4 moves to secure the Top.