The European Youth Championship in Perm in Russia is taking place 1 - 5 May. The big sensation during day two was that Alberto Gines Lopez, who has qualified to the Olympics and who was runner up overall in the Lead WC in 2019, after Adam Ondra, was #4. As a matter of a fact, all the three guys on the Junior podium were one year younger than Alberto born in 2002. Here are the first winners. Complete results

Lead 02: Paul Jenft FRA - Lucija Tarkus SLO
Lead 04: Mejdi Schalk FRA - Marketa Janosova CZE
Boulder 06: Nikolay Rusev BUL - Darya Akulova RUS

Noteworthy is that in the girls 06, the bronze was won by Arina Jurcenko who did not manage to score even one zone in the final. She was #3 by countback to the semifinal where she did one top. Out of the 20 girls in the semi, only one more top was achieved!

Mejdi Schalk was the only one winning all three rounds and he did it actually in a superior style.

Dylan Chuat has done his fourth 9a, during the last nine months, Coup de Grace in Ticino. On Insta he comments, "It felt incredible 😍!! I’m excited to find a route really hard which will take me some time to work on and put in a lot of attempts until I make it 😁💪🏼!!" (c) Fedir Samoilov

During the last weeks, the 20-year-old has also done two 8B FAs in Valle Bavona. Last November he was #11 in the Euro Lead Championship in Moscow.

Staša Gejo, who has done five 8A's in 2021, has done her third 8A+ during the last year, Backgammon in Frankenjura and amazingly she took it down on her second session, video.

So how was it possible to take it down in just two sessions?
Well, to be honest, I don't think 8A+ is my realistic upper limit, so I need to try something harder. Additionally, this one really suited me well.

When will you start trying 8B and 8B+?
I tried some, they feel pretty hard, but doable. I need to find something that suits me better 🤷🏻‍♀️ I have time :)

Giuliano Cameroni has done Jimmy Webb's La Rustica in Valle Bavona. "Could never do the crux move for the past years. A few weeks ago I realized that it was possible so I started investing more time into it. Took me three days to stick the crux move and on that same try, I luckily didn’t let go and made it to the top. It was an epic fight haha. Concerning the grade, it personally felt like a very hard 8C."

Previously, the 23-year-old Swizz, has done 18 8C's and harder out of which eight FAs. On Insta he comments, "Perfect rock and moves make this one of the coolest lines I’ve ever seen!"

Solveig Korherr has done her ninth 8c the last year, Odd Fellows in Frankenjura. In the 8a ranking game, the 22-year-old is #2.

"Yippie! Two days this trip + a couple of tries from last year in spring. Fingers felt good on these tiny Frankenjura crimps! After getting heartbreakingly close on my second try already, I kept falling lower and lower. I’m glad I managed to keep calm and to clip the anchor today! :) Thanks Jon for belaying and sorry for the wobblers :D.

I will spend the next two weeks in Frankenjura, but without any specific goals. I‘m psyched to climb a lot and check out some new cliffs as there are so many options to choose from.”

Oriane Bertone got the silver in the Meiringen World Cup with two tops. In the picture, we can see how close she was to have been timed out, as it was taken when it was around 0.95 seconds left. Even so, she managed to, in less than a second, reach a "controlled position: with both hands matched on the Top Hold", according to the judge, before the 4 min were over.

I agree that this was a correct subjective decision, although she was just hanging with no foot on the wall when the 4 min was over. However, if she had topped it out just some split seconds later, it could have been questionable whether she had established a "controlled position" before the time was over.

One problem is that there is no clear definition of what a controlled position of a top means. If, for example, the top would have been less juggy or had involved a bigger swing, I do not think you could have said Oriane had reached a "controlled position" until she had put one foot on the wall or a hold. In such case, the judge and the jury president would have come into a subjective dilemma which most probably had ended in a protest either way. Imagine, this would have been the Olympics and the podium would have been decided by a subjective decision by referees with absolutely no knowledge of how it is to do such a dyno and reach a "controlled position". Furthermore, the judge has never felt or seen the top of the hold.

The solution for this potential anti-climax subjective situation in Tokyo is to change the rule to say that you just need to touch the last hold, with both hands, within the four minutes and then you have like five seconds to get a controlled position to be awarded the top. This would mean that the top decision could be made more objectively and fairer to everyone.

Stefano Ghisolfi made the first repeat of Silvio Reffo's The Ring of Life 9a/+ from 2014 in Covolo. The Italian did it in a quick three days trip and he has now done 40 routes 9a to 9b+.

Beatrice Colli, 16, from Italy won two Euro Cups in 2019. Later in 2020, she started to get pain in both her heels and she started to climb with larger, adjusted shoes with no pressure on the heel. Things were going quite well until she participated in the last Italian Cup where she used normal tight shoes and after many heel hooks, the problem got worse again. In this video, Bea and her trainer Fabio Palma talks about the problem.

Bea suffers from the Haglund deformity, which is caused by too much tension on the heel and creates inflammation and sometimes bone enlargement. If so, surgery is needed. Every time you jump down or make hard heel hooks, you are at risk. Climbing big overhangs mean less pressure on the heel while boulder dynos or even Speed climbing cause more pressure, assuming you are using the same shoes.

One month ago, I wrote an article talking about how to reduce the tension on the heels in kids' climbing shoes. By asking around, it now seems the Haglund deformity is a common problem, especially among younger climbers. Björn "Dr 8a" Alber will follow up with a longer article.

Philipp Gaßner has done Action Directe in Frankenjura which was put up by Wolfgang Gullich in 1990 and generally considered to be the first 9a in the world. In total, it has been repeated 27 times and interestingly, during the last 2.5 years, it had only been done twice, including Melissa Le Neve doing the first female ascent last year. (c) Basti Scheibel

"Psyched to have finally climbed that one. I’ve wanted to do it for a long time but somehow I’ve only spent there a couple of days over the past few years. This spring I was super excited to give it a serious go. And on the fourth day of this season, I did it with great support from my friends. There is not much left to say about the route. This thing is just absolutely iconic and it‘s still a difficult test piece. Looking forward to moving on to the next projects!"

What was hardest for you redpointing it?
The hardest was to be that certain mental state to be able to climb the route because I knew I was strong enough to do so. Just focusing on the very next move and not trying to calculate if I can send it or not. And even though there was a little mistake during the send go I did not let go.

The first time Philipp made 8a headlines was in 2014, being 14-years-old doing his first 8c+, Reality Check. In total, the German has now done 15 routes 8c+ and 9a. This year, he has also done his first 8C boulder.

Please take a few minutes and take part in this interesting survey by Sports Master student Julian Hentz:

The study would like to learn about climbers’ preferences when choosing routes and boulders in the gym. The survey is completely anonymous and takes around 10 minutes to complete. It’s available in English, German, French, Spanish and Portuguese. The findings will be published in the next issue of Route Setter Magazine.