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Erin Sterkenburg, who was #33 and #48 in the Youth World Championship last year, and Christoffer Cosser have qualified to Tokyo 2021. In the African Championship, Erin was totally superior winning all six stages meanwhile it was a closer race for Christoffer.

Erin: "I started training at the end of 2019 for Africa Cup, having qualified earlier in the year, as the comp was scheduled for March 2020. Sadly, one week before the comp was supposed to happen, it was cancelled due to Covid-19. South Africa went into lockdown and this was a difficult time for everyone, for me specifically as an athlete without access to a climbing wall. Once lockdown ended and the comp was rescheduled for December it gave me something to work towards and I was super psyched to be able to train and climb again. During training motivation was sometimes low as at times we were unsure if Africa Cup would even happen.

During lockdown I was quite restricted with what training I could do because I don’t have a home wall, so I tried to work on some weaknesses like power. In general I climb about five days a week and I have been doing a lot of comp simulation leading up to Africa Cup. It’s quite surreal at the moment, it hasn’t really sunk in, but I am so thankful to everyone that has helped me get where I am right now. In the coming months, I will try my best to train as hard as I possibly can to be ready for Tokyo."

Oceania Mackenzie, who was #6 in a Boulder WC last year, did win all six races and got her Olympic ticket in the Oceania Championship. The best time in Speed for the 18-year-old was 8.45 and besides that she onsighted seven out of the eight problems as well as topped both routes.

Among the male, it was Tom O'Halloran who made it to Tokyo. He won also the qualification but in the final, it was an extremely close race but in the end, he was #2 in bouldering having done three zones in eleven attempts. Video interview. If he had used just one more attempt, James Kassay would have been the lucky one. Complete results.

Tom: "The whole story is massive, but the short version. It was a tough tough journey, one that pushed me beyond what I thought I was capable of. I nearly pulled out of the whole event 4 weeks ago. I’m so grateful to my partner and daughter for getting me through it and being the best support I could ever wish for.

My motivation was very very low. 2020 was a massive year, my home was under threat from bushfires in the beginning of the year, COVID struck and I lost my job in March, I injured 2 pulleys and a knee between April and June. Being a rock climber, I missed the crag days too and having fun with friends and having balance. I was missing time with my family too. The nearest modern style climbing gym is 1 1/2hrs away so I was spending so much time away from home training by myself. I felt guilty taking all the space in my family too. My partner Amanda is a superstar for supporting me through it all. (c) Set in Stone.

Alex Garriga, who has done two 9a+' in 2020, has done the FA of Cordia Maleficarum 9a in Cuenca. "You have to do the hard part if Corazón cofrade, about 8c. Then there are twelve moves independent traverse and for finish the final of Malleus Maleficarum, a project." After he did the 8c, he did the FA after some 20 tries.

Aris and Katie report about the new Leonidio and Kyparissi guidebook. 496 pages in total, includes 83 crags (51 in the print edition + 32 extra in the app) and nearly 2500 sport routes for all levels. Developments up to December 2020 are included. In comparison with their old selective topo, the number of crags has almost doubled up.

Other features:
Crag Planner to help you work out your climbing itinerary
Large, clear, accurate photo-topos
Ample drone photos for easy wayfinding (new!)
GPS coordinates for each sector
User-friendly layout and info about shade, orientation, kid-friendliness, equippers, and essential gear for each crag
Route star ratings and descriptions that are concise yet informative
Hundreds of full-color action photos
Stories about local life, history, and people (new!)
…and, of course, the FREE APP version by Vertical-Life. As always, you get two books in one 🙂

This guidebook was made possible by the warm collaboration with the people and municipality of South Kynouria (i.e. Leonidio) and the Leonidio Association of Business Owners. If working during the pandemic was such a challenge, publishing a new guidebook amidst a pandemic—and a climbing season that’s essentially cancelled—will be an even greater challenge. Yet here we are: missing the crags desperately, but keeping ourselves and others safe, and waiting to show you our beautiful country and its superb cliffs as soon as travel reopens. We are grateful as ever for all your support, dear friends. Be well, and please enjoy a preview of our new Leonidio & Kyparissi guidebook below 🙏

PS. The proceeds of this guidebook go back into local climbing and crag maintenance. As for giving back to the community, the Leonidio municipality has committed to using most proceeds from the guidebook for further development and route maintenance. Importantly, this ensures the local authorities will have an ongoing stream of revenue to use for climbing—a low-impact form of tourism which has already added immense value to Leonidio. Soon you will be able to read more about how these proceeds are used on the official Climbinleonidio.com. (The estimation is that around 20 000 Euro will go back to new bolts, rebolting and trails etc.)

Christian Core, the world champion who twice has won the Boulder WC, has given some insight of his masterpiece from 2008 that Adam Ondra in 2011 upgraded it to 8C+ and commented.

"A fairy-tale end of a physical and mental battle, spent 11 days in total on this problem, the same as on Terranova, therefore I go for 8C+ from the same reasons. Thumbs up Christian for the vision and excitement to keep trying over and over again, I knew it is possible, Christian saw just a piece of incredible impossible-looking rock."

Gioia is part of the bouldering history as it was probably the first 8C+ in the world. Nalle Hukkataival, known for his hard grades and who did the first 9A in 2016, repeated it in 2014. "One of the very hardest boulders in the world. Let's remember that the name of the boulder is "Joy" and for me, it stands out more than just a grade." At that time there existed some 30 8C's out of which Nalle had done 10-ish.

Since five years, there exists a new sharp crimp on Gioia that makes it probably one grade easier. Even so, the fourth ascent was just done by Niky Ceria, avoiding the new sharp crimp that appeared some five years ago. "The method I used doesn't hold the sharp crimp and make a wide reach to the decent edge. So you make the come-in from a better hold and it's quite powerful. It makes the boulder longer so you basically you have no chalk for the upper part. I think it looks very wide from the bottom, but way less when you are pulled into the wall."

We asked Core if he could give us the history of Gioia also including some of the controversies in regards the new holds and the use of glue?

“I would like to begin by congratulating my friend Niccolò Ceria, a very strong and humble climber who, climbing Gioia, not only climbed another beautiful line, but also one of the benchmarks of Varazze. A lot has been said on various websites about this boulder, even recently about holds on this boulder not being natural. I understand that web sites publish what others write, but it’s important that the author has a complete understanding of what they write, so I would like to clarify some details. The boulder was originally discovered by the tireless local Marco Bagnasco, who cleaned up entire cave and found this logical line made up of small crimps. The rock was solid but deep inside some crimps in the second section there were thin slits. So to protect these holds from water and winter ice, I decided to put transparent glue in these little cracks so they could not be seen outside the crack. (It’s called super glue). I would like it to be clear that other than this, nothing else was done. All the holds of Gioia are natural.

I climbed this boulder in 2008, calling it "Gioia", (in english “Joy”) a simple name, given by the emotion of discovering, working and being able to climb such a beautiful line after so much dedication. Some years after my accent it was repeated by two very strong climbers, Adam Ondra in 2011 and then Nalle Hukkataival in 2014. About a year after Nalle’s ascent, we found two important changes. A new good crimp appeared in the first section, where nothing had existed before, and also a new foothold appeared in the second section. So the Gioia line had been changed, and as I wrote at that time, I closed the foothold, which I assure you that I did not like doing. The new crimp, because too big, I however left (and can be seen in the attached photos) and if used, does change the grade of this first section. It’s worth noting that at the same time as the holds appeared on Gioia, we also found new holds on another boulder in the same area named. “Raptor Survives”, the last section has “new holds”, avoiding the hardest part, making the line easier and different. I’d like to again congratulate Niccolò for his repetition and importantly demonstrating a strong ethic by climbing it using the original holds. I hope others can have the joy of climbing it in this way.”

Alex Megos reports on Insta that he has done Dreamtime 8C (B+) in Cresciano after two days of trying. In total, the German has done 26 boulders 8A to 8C as well as well as ten routes 8c+/9a to 9c, and he has been appointed 8a Climber of 2020. (c) Alise Zvigule

Jakob Schubert is one of the contenders being the 8a climber of 2020. Besides flashing The Never Ending Story 8B+, he did 17 boulders 8B as harder as well as ten 9a's. (c) Michael Piccolruaz

Could you please summarize your climbing year 2020?"
Well I obviously trained all three disciplines pretty hard until March where I wanted to have my last Combined test in Moscow. Definitely trained quite a lot of speed as well but for me, the speed training is always something I do extra. I try to do as much lead and boulder as before since at the end of the day the most important thing in combined is still being best at your main disciplines. After the Olympics got cancelled and we didn’t have many comps I took the opportunity to climb outside as much as possible. I‘m really lucky that we have so many great crags close to my home. I was still very thankful that our federation organized a few comps called the Austrian Summer Series though. With these comps, I could see that my preparation for the Olympics was pretty good since I was able to do well in all disciplines. Finally, we had the only Worldcup of the season in Briançon which I wasn’t sure how serious I should take at first. But when Adam came to Innsbruck and I saw how hard he trains and how serious he takes Briancon, I got very psyched as well and tried to get in good lead shape as fast as possible. Briançon was great and I was pretty happy with my climbing which was important for my head since my lead performance in 2019 wasn’t good enough.

Already before Briancon, I started to have problems with my biceps (some inflammation) especially in Speed, so I had to stop training it for almost 3 months, slowly starting with it again right now. I took the time to climb mostly routes outside since that was causing no pain and of course was a lot of fun as well. All in all a good year but definitely a strange one. Can‘t wait to finally be able to travel more again!

What was your best climbing moments in 2020?
Well there are quite a few rememberable moments. The flash of Never Ending Story definitely was special since the whole 2-day trip was amazing and I always wanted to flash this one so once it actually happened I was so psyched! La Force Tranquille both the original and the new direct version are also amazing memories, I just love this boulder problem. Route wise ‚Weiße Rose‘ comes to mind as a special memory of this year, it wasn‘t a hard fight but I send it right after coming out of hard lockdown so it was special in terms of feeling free and strong again 😊