Matteo Reusa has done his second 8c+ by the FA of One Punch in Falesia del ghëddo which is a new crag in Piedmont developed by his family and trainers. Last week, his brother Michele (14) made the FA of another 8c+ and they plan to set up some 30 routes at the 20-meter crag.

"The route, after a simple part of 7a +, consists of 15 very difficult movements. My father bolted it and I tried the route for 12 days."

Oriane Bertone started the first boulder by innovating a new move! The 16-year-old jammed her left hand high up and put the upperside of her right shoe on the texture of the wall and then, sitting on her foot like a ballerina, she made a kneebar and continued doing the boulder on her first try.

1. Natalia Grossman USA 44 - Kokoro Fujii JPN 34
2. Brooke Raboutou USA 34 (6) - Adam Ondra CZE 23
3. Johanna Färber AUT 34 (9) - Gregor Vezonik SLO 13 (2)
4. Jessica Pilz AUT 34 (11) - Jakob Schubert AUT 13 (3)
5. Miho Nonaka JPN 33 - Anze Peharc SLO 13 (4)
6. Oriane Bertone FRA 24 (2) - Mejdi Schalck 13 (12)
Complete results

Yoshiyuki Ogata won the qualification in Salt Lake City ahead of Adam Ondra, the only two making all five boulders. Nathaniel Coleman was #21 scoring 35 (3 Tops and 5 zones), in eight attempts which were two too many. Tomoaki Takata was #22, scoring also 35, Jernej Kruder was #29, scoring 34, and Sean McColl was #33, scoring 33. Otherwise, all big names made it to the semifinal. Complete results

Marcello Bombardi, who won one World Cup in 2017, has done the third ascent of Lapsus in Andonno giving it a 9a+ personal grade. Stefano Ghisolfi put it up in 2015 and it is an extension to Noia. The first repeat was done by Adam Ondra. Marcello has previously done five 9a's out of which four the last year.

Miho Nonaka won the qualification in the Boulder World Cup in Salt Lake City doing all five boulders in just seven attempts. The big surprises were that the two Olympians Petra Klingler was #25, scoring 25 (2 Tops and 5 zones) and Shauna Coxsey was #36, scoring 13. The other two Olympians who did not qualify to the Top-20 semifinal were Kyra Condie #30 and Erin Sterkenburg #42, out of 49 participants. Complete results
(c) Vladek Zumr

It should be noted that Janja Garnbret, who has won eight consecutive WC's, did not participate but will compete the next weekend. In total, 12 out of the 20 female Olympians did not participate including also; Akiyo Noguchi, Julia Chanourdie, Chaehyun Seo and Mia Krampl.

In the 8a Practice and Ethics in Sportclimbing, first published in 2002, we have suggested, in regards to pre-clipping quickdraws, that it is ok to have one pre-clipped if it is for safety reasons. In the old days, pre-clipping was not allowed, and originally you were even supposed to place the quickdraws on lead, which is still the case in trad climbing.

Over time, the ethics gradually changed, and at one point you could see top climbers starting redpoint attempts with the rope pre-clipped on 10+ quickdraws. The rationale for this was that you could pre-clip as high as from which you could downclimb. The climbers pushing this the most actually first redpointed the route from let's say the fourth quickdraw and later started projecting the down climb or even jumped down to claim that they were allowed to have multiple quickdraws pre-clipped.

Today, it is a common practice to use one pre-clipped. Two, or even three, pre-clipped quickdraws you sometimes see on relatively hard starts with bolts far apart and on climbs with bad landings. The 8a ethics suggest that this practice is an "ethical dilemma", but anyhow OK if it is done for safety reasons. In practice, we have labelled such ascents as a "yellow card" to not have any fixed rules but rather recommendations. When it comes to three or more pre-clipped, we have said that "normally" such ascent should be called top-roping and that down-climbing, in order to get more pre-clipped, is ridiculous.

However, the 8a ethics are not set in stone and it is up to each climber and community to practice them or set up new guidelines. There are of course many unique situations where the 8a ethics are not applicable. One example is if the FA did it in a special way, surely the repeaters could do it in the same style or improve it. Another example is if the bolter put up one extra bolt in very steep starts in order to increase the safety for the belayer to not get hit by a pendulum swing by the climber. In any case, when you are pushing the yellow card area making it slightly reddish you are best off describing your practised ethics.

Jorge Verhoeven reports on Insta that he has done three hard routes in Arco giving them all a personal 8c+ grade, which means one suggested upgrade and two downgrades. The downgrades might be related to the use of knee pads which can be seen in the picture by Tobias Lanzanasto .

Reini's Vibes is the classical 8c in the big Massone roof. Underground is the third most repeated 8c+/9a in the world, at one time 9a, with 35 ascents. Puro Dreaming is a 9a that Alex Megos flashed last October and he was the first to say it is possibly just 8c+.

The 35-year-old says it was exactly 20 years since he first tried them. The same year he got the silver in the Youth World Championship which he later won in 2002 and 2004. In 2008, he won the Overall Lead World Cup. Once he finished his competition career in 2014, he has done some very impressive big walls such as The Nose 8b+ and Dihedral wall 8c on El Capitain in Yosemite. During the last years, his main focus has been setting up new lines, video documentary, as well as his Project-9b.com in Spain, which is paused due to Covid-19. In short, this Dutchman, who moved to Innsbruck in 2004, has been one of the big profiles on the scene during the last 20 years.

Jonatan Flor reports on Insta that he has done two 8c+/9a in Rodellar; Incredible Total and The escape of Ali, Priorato de Sión 9a in Alquezar and the FA of Picacho increíble total 9a+ in the Ali Baba cave Rodellar. (c) Javi Pec

Jonatan's big project is to do El Picacho which is a new link-up starting with an 8B+ boulder. In total, the Spaniard has done 45 routes 8c+/9a to 9b.

Giuseppe Nolasco has done his second 9a, TCT in Gravere. (c) Pietro Bassotto

”I immediately felt comfortable with all the moves of this route. It has no particular hard crux but a concentration of resistance to strength. After a good winter training I started trying TCT in early spring, I was thinking of a long-term project, but after a few weekends I found myself at the last movement and I didn't hesitate to reach the final edge.”

It was put up by Stefano Ghisolfi in 2014 who wanted to dedicate the route to Tito Claudio Traversa who tragically died at age 12 as the quickdraws he had borrowed from a friend had been wrongly assembled. Tito was well-known in the climbing world having done his first 8b+ being 10-years-old.