Siebe Vanhee and Sébastien Berthe’s have repeated Fly 8c (in Lauterbrunnen, which is 550 meters divided into 20 pitches. Roger Schaeli opened it and the Alex Megos did the FA in 2014. Impressively Seb and Sébastient did it ground-up in only three days and they both gave it a personal 8b+ grade and the second hardest pitch to be 8b. (c) Julia Cassou

"Seb and I left the base at 7am in the morning, with our portaledge and haul bag fully packed for an autonomous sent. The aim of the day was to reach the ledge below pitch 17, swinging leads, climbing everything free and hauling our household with us. It seemed like an ambitious plan considering the heavy packs and the sustained grading in the high 7th grade. But the sooner we got on the ledge the sooner we could tackle the three upper cruxpitches. The first nine pitches are slabby, hard to read and were quite dirty. This didn’t hinder us to climb them almost all onsight, except for two 7c’s. We were surprisingly quick, at 2:30pm we arrived at the ledge, just in time to get roasted in the sun without losing precious skin on our fingers! That same night, Julia joined us on the ledge and installed some static lines to shoot our ascent from above the following days. An early morning start was necessary to get as much shade as possible. This west facing wall gets sun at 2pm. This time Seb started off, he immediately onsighted the 8b (pitch 17) off the ledge. Setting the bar high for the day! I was nervous but managed to quickly flash the route after my partner while Julia was dangling above us capturing every emotion. We continued the climb with a 7b+ pitch up to the start of the crux of the whole line, graded 8c. I took off first, for a long journey towards the anchor. Slowly I found the beta, brushed and marked all the holds to make it look like a climbable piece of rock. Tackling an 8c pitch on an alpine limestone multipitch can be quite intimidating. There is dirt, no chalk and an incredibly exposed atmosphere! After Seb worked the moves, I gave it a solid go but fell due to a hold that broke in the easier section. I gave it a third go. I felt tired, had no skin left and climbed nervous but dedicated to send, which I did! The sun started to hit the wall, a good reason for Seb to save his energy and skin for the next morning. We descended back to our portaledge camp and started our second sunbathing session.

Day three, for me there was only one pitch left. Seb was in a more stressful position this time, having to still send the cruxpitch. First thing in the morning, mentally strong as he is, he cruised the pitch up to the anchor. My turn again to work out the moves of the last, 8b+, pitch. This pitch is a 15 meter slabclimb with one powerful move of a small flat crimp. Move by move I brushed and found the beta again, it didn’t seem too bad in the end. Again, Seb took his turn and worked the moves. I gave it a try and fell after the crux move due to a microscopic edge that broke below my ring finger. I came down immediately and gave it a third go straight away. With two fingertips taped and two others completely cracked and bleeding I crimped through the section and send this last pitch! There was no option to recover skin or put on more tape. Anyway, for a last pitch of such a difficult and long multipitch I didn’t care about the skin anymore. Although I reached the anchor, it wasn’t over yet. Seb still had to send. Two more tries later he did and the joy was felt by all three of us! A third and fourth freeascent of ‘Fly’, an amazing adventure on the wall, quality images and some great vibes with a cool crew!"

The Euro Youth Cup in Ostermundigen showed again very good results for Eastern Europe and that Austria, who has dominated the scene for several years, struggle. In the two female youngest categories, Czechia won two golds and among the boys, Slovenia and Hungary won. In male Youth A, Hungary had three boys in Top-7. Olympian, Alberto Ginés López won as he also did last weekend.

02: Alberto Ginés López ESP - Camille Pouget FRA
04: Gergö Valyi HUN - Marketa Janosova CZE
06: Gorazd Jureković SLO - Barbora Bernardova CZE

The most superior winners were López and Valyi, who also won last weekend.

Akiyo Noguchi and Tomoa Narasaki won the Japan Combined Cup which only included Lead and Boulder. A new scoring system was tested where the winners got 100 points in each discipline.

1. Akiyo Noguchi 200 - Tomoa Narasaki 200
2. Miho Nonaka - Kokoro Fuji
3. Saari Watanabe - Yoshiyuki Ogata
It should be noted that Olympian Kai Harada was not listed in the Top-8.

In a separate Speed event, Nonaka and Narasaki won getting 7.88 respectively 5.90 as their fastest race. These times are superior among the non-Speed specialists in Tokyo and actually you could win doing 5.90 in Tokyo.

Nicola Vonarburg, who started climbing in 1985, has done his fourth 8c+, by the FA of Missfonda in Cevio. (c) Egon Bernasconi

“I lost count of how many times I had to redo the first part of Miss! (8b) Then in a day with bad conditions the miracle! The central crossbar is spectacular! On the degree then we will see even if in the end it interests me little, the journey and the satisfaction of clipping that chain was more important than a number on 8a.nu!“

In total, the 48-year-old has during the last five years done 41 FAs, 8b and harder. His only other appearances in the 8a news was in 2012, with the headline, “... (39) at his peak”, doing his second 8c+.

Sometimes the anchor is placed so it is almost impossible to come down from the anchor without creating a massive rope drag and wear of the rope. If you want to toprope such a route, one possible solution is to pull down an extra full rope length to the ground and "tie in with a Grigri", including a safety knot below. Then you can climb and your partner pulls in and belay like normal. Once at the top, you just take out the safety knot and rappel down with your GriGri. It should be mentioned that the suggested method should only be tried on routes where you do not take multiple falls. All falls, will wear the rope so you should absolutely not fall several times on the same spot.

Before you start doing this advanced technology make sure you put safety knots on both ends of the rope. Remember that you need as much rope below the climber's Grigri as the route is long.

Silvio Reffo, who did his twelfth 9a in 2018, has added one more to his scorecard, Sever The Wicked Hand in Frankenjura. "I did a try some years ago, last week I checked the moves but the route was wet and this week I tried two days."

How come this was the first 9a since 2018?
I climbed some 9a but I downgraded them to 8c+ 😂😂😂... Last year due to lockdown I didn't climb and skip the good climbing season in Italy. With work and family, it's also difficult to be in a good shape every moment...

What are your summer plans?
I’d like to finish some projects near home but I must wait for fresh conditions So for the summer I’ll work, train and climb in some summer spots in Italy.

Giuliano Cameroni has done the fourth ascent of Daniel Woods' La force tranquille 8C. (c) Clément Lechaptois

"Started trying it in 2016. First epic moment was in 2018 falling off the topout due to a silly foot slip. Next day it snowed a meter or so and had to wait the whole winter. Seemed like it was a matter of tries to get it done but in 2019 and 2020 it didn’t work out. This season, after focusing on improving the crimp power, the line felt doable again and on the 2nd try I found myself on top!" More comments on his Insta

Adam Ondra is the best climber in the world and the discipline he is most superior in is onsights. When he was a kid and a teenager, his focus was onsight and I always try to tell the talented youngsters and their parents that they should opt for onsights rather than projecting one route for months. Here is the Top-10 onsight for kids. Below is another ranking based on adding 200 extra points per year born 2004 later, and also adding 1 000 points for girls.

12 320 Iziar Martinez-05
12 170 Gianluca Vighetti -08
11 720 Maho Normand -05
11 720 Olivia Ma -05
11 618 Illya Bakhmet-Smolenskyi -05

Another teenager sticking out is Alex Totkova -05, who has onsighted three 8a+'.