Alex Totkova made her first 8a headlines when she did her first 8a at age 12. Previously, she had for two years won all the comps she had done in Bulgaria, Petzen, Imst and Arco. Being 13, she did her first 8c and last year she sent her first 9a (8c+). In 2019, she started doing IFSC Youth Cups and although winning two events, half of the time she was outside the podium. In her WC debut, she was #18 and then #6 before getting the bronze in Chamonix. (c) Vladek Zumr

How can you training wise explain your great progress in 2021?
This season, which is not over yet 😊, was planned by my coaches a year earlier. They inspired me and motivated me that things could work out. For my preparation most of the time we trained in Bulgaria in NSA gym. We do not have the best conditions for lead in all Bulgaria and I mostly train on the boulder wall for endurance. But I hope that things will get better soon 😀. I have a training program but it is difficult for explain. We are training different for every competition.

How does it feel to have taken such big steps up in the ranking?
With a lot of experience and adrenaline from yesterday's final, I am almost happy with my climbing😚….. but not really happy🤷🏼‍♀️, because I could do a little more. I really want to get pump at my maximum as the best climbers do. And I think I didn’t do my best, yes nice climbing but not enough. Now l am looking for the next competition which is after a few days. I want to show my limit.🤪 TOP

What are your goals for 2021?
My dreams are my goal and I want to fulfil my dreams without anyone knowing about them. After fulfilling them maybe I will want to say😁😆

Pierre Le Cerf has done the FA of Alone 9a in Gorges du Loup, which is an extension to an 8b+/c. (c) Loïc Athenon

"This project was a great lesson in life because, during the first two sessions, I barely reached the beginning of the hard passage. I fell each time on the first move after 35m of 8b+/c climbing. I lacked fluidity, mental strength for some parts, lower temperature and endurance in the forearms, and especially more endurance in the arms. I went back to training and inserted a bit of route-specific endurance into these workouts and I was doing circuits 8-10 min in my bedroom in the heat, without stopping, to get used to this long effort. I say "a great lesson in life" because in just two other sessions in the route I ended up doing it thanks to a great desire. Anything can happen quickly in life."

1. Sean Bailey USA 200 - Laura Rogora* ITA 223
2. Stefano Ghisolfi ITA 191 - Janja Garnbret* SLO 200
3. Sascha Lehmann SUI 148 - Vita Lukan SLO 153
4. Higuchi Masahiro JPN 135 - Natalia Grossman USA 151
5. Alex Megos* GER 127 - Alex Totkova (16) BUL 128
6. Alberto Gines Lopez* ESP 126 - Julia Chanourdie* FRA 115
* Athletes that will compete in the Olympics.

In the next event in Briancon, only Gines Lopez and Jessica Pilz have registered to compete out of all 40 Olympians.

Laura Rogora won in Chamonix being the only one topping out in a great fight, which was the highlight of the evening. Natalia Grossman continued showing great also in Lead, getting the silver. Third was Alex Totkova (16) who has improved from being #18 and #6 in her two first WCs. Vita Lukan lost the bronze due to countback. (c) Vladek Zumr

Among the male, unfortunately, the route was too hard but as in Villars, Sean Bailey got highest on the wall. Second and third were Stefano Ghisolfi and Martin Stranik who both fell as they tried to use a kneebar. Martin is a boulder specialist who got the silver in the World Championship in 2007! From the Complete results we can see that almost all of the Olympians did not take part.

During the finals in Chamonix, the commentators said twice that time would be the decisive factor if there would be ties, as all eight finalists had topped the semi. This thought was also put forward in the winner interview with Laura Rogora who answered that this was not the case as her result was not tied. The commentator seems to have missed that, according to the IFSC Rules, which is easy to misunderstand, that also the qualification results counts.

7.24 Semi-final and Final rankings.
B) in relation to the Semi-Final round, if any competitors are tied following the ranking procedure of Article 7.22, their relative ranking shall be determined by count-back to their Qualification Ranking (unless the Qualification round was held with two Starting Groups).
C) in relation to the Final round, if any competitors are tied following the ranking procedure of Article 7.22, their relative ranking shall be determined:
1) by count-back to their rankings from the preceding round; and
2) if following count-back, any competitors are tied in joint first, second or third place, these places shall be determined by the climbing time for each competitor (lower times are better).

Alex Totkova was tied with Vita Lukan at 38+ and Vita made it to that score in less time than Alex. However, as Alex had a better ranking coming into to the final, she got the bronze. From my understanding, it seems that the word "relative" is missing in 7.24 C 1.

Simon Lorenzi reports on Insta that he has done a direct 8C variation of Giuliano Cameroni's Power of Now 8C. The 168 cm tall had to add one dyno from two underclings in order to get to the original starting crimps, which you normally can reach from the slab. (c) Samuel Tuor

"I did it on the first try of my 2nd session. Next is back to training for competitions :) My next official competition will be the world championship in September."

Jakob Schubert, who is going to the Olympic as one of the three top medal candidates, gives his insight story from Innsbruck, where he won in Lead and came #13 in Bouldering.

Johanna Klein, who was #12 in a Euro Youth Cup in May, has done two 8A's in Silvretta, Schattenkrieger and Niviuk. (c) Leonard Moser

Video from her first trip to Magic doing her third 8A. Interestingly, the 18-year-old has never needed more than three sessions doing any of her five 8A's. She only started climbing in 2017 with a background in artistic gymnastics. In March 2020, she had to do a shoulder surgery.

"The reason for my shoulder surgery was a slap lesion in my right shoulder. I had shoulder pain for quite some time which was induced due to overtraining. At the beginning of July last year, I started climbing again - towards August/September I was able to return to full training."

Nolwenn Arc topped the too easy female semi route in Chamonix but failed to qualify to the final, due to countback. The big negative surprice was that Momoka Abe, #4 in Villars, and Lucka Rakovec, who won the qualification, did not make the final although almost all the Olympians were missing.

Among the boys, Sascha Lehmann got highest followed by Stefano Ghisolfi. The three highest ranked after the qualification, Satone Yoshida, Alberto Gines Lopez and Domen Skofic did all fail to make the final. It was raining and possibly this created worse conditions for the ones starting last. (c) Vladek Zumr Male and Female results.