"The IOC Executive Board also agreed to add Boulder & Lead and Speed events to the programme, bringing the total number of medal events for Sport Climbing at Paris 2024 to four, two more than at Tokyo 2020. The number of participating athletes will grow to 68 for Paris 2024, a significant increase from the 40 that will compete at Tokyo 2020 next August. " More info at IFSC

In practice, this could mean that 18 males and 18 females will compete in a Combined Lead and Boulder format, as well as there, will be a separate Speed event with 16 males and 16 females in Paris. Another option is 22 respectively 18 but that would mean that the qualification will take a very long long time for Lead/Bouldering in comparison to the Speed qualification.

Bernd Zangerl, one of the hardcore boulder pioneers, especially in Magic Wood, has done yet a new FA, Grenzenlose in Valle dell'Orco. No suggested FA grade but as it took him quite a while it should be at least 8b trad. More info to come. (c) Jacopo Larcher

"I could have built a landing zone or organized 10 crash pads that have now become "the norm", but I'm not friends with these trends. Adapting the challenge to a personal comfort zone would have made the first ascent easier and more quicker for sure. But, isn`t mother nature the director and sets the level of challenge for us, also in terms of protection? Physically I knew straight away that I can do this project, the crux was the mind. I prefer to work alone or with my best friend on mental physical challenges like this. I am oldschool, but choosing the longer way also means a more intense examination of the project." Full story

Kim Marschner, who did his first 9a this summer, has done the Dreamtime in Cresciano. The classical Fred Nicole test-piece put up in 2001 as the first 8C in the world but it was later considered 8B+ until a hold broke down. "Such a classic! 8B+, 8C I can't tell. Maybe low end 8C. The left heel hook drove me crazy. Needed one lucky Go where the hook stuck and I climbed it to the end in my third session. Did the far lock off from the crimp." Video on his Insta.

Yesterday, Marscher was in German television in the Nina final where he was runner up after Alex Wurm, meaning he also lost Euro 25 000 in prize money.

"I started Ninja because of Moritz Hans. He was also a comp climber until he retired three years ago. He asked me to join his team at Team Ninja Warrior two years ago. In the same year, I also competed for the first time at the normal Ninja Warrior Germany and became second after Alex Wurm. Last year I injured my foot by trying the Mega Wall. It is 5,5m high and I slipped off the lip and fell all the way down. So I finished the stage and also the next stage on the same day but the next day I went to the doctor and he said I have a torn ligament. So I couldn’t keep on.

This year I made it safely through the qualification and semis. In qually there was the power tower for the first time. The two fastest from every qualification (there where 6 qually's) competed against each other in that power tower. The one who was faster was straight in finals and won 5000€. I won. So in finals I started and came the furthest but there where still three to come. I fell at the last obstacle the flying bar before the mount Midori Yama. So Alex was the last to come and made it one jump further than me so I became second again. No money for the second place. First got 25.000€"

Jesse train/climbs six times a week although having a full-time job and indoors he has flashed 7a+. "I'm a weekend warrior on the gritstone. I have never repointed a route, my background is very much trad non-sight. I have to do everything by feel or if my belayer, Molly can see something from the ground she uses a radio to tell me, but Molly hasn't climbed the routes beforehand so has no extra beta other than what she can see from the floor. Sometimes it's wrong."

Nicolai Užnik, who won a Bouldering Euro Youth Cup in 2019, has done his first 8C, Bügeleisen sit in Maltatal. The classical line has an 8B+ stand start that was put up by Klem Loskot in 2001.

”You climb 3-4 moves until you‘re in the stand start position. The moves are not really hard (7B+ish) but you get tired, so obviously it makes it a lot more difficult to climb the whole boulder from the sit. (about 12 moves in total) I started trying the sit start this summer where conditions weren’t the best but then it was wet almost the whole fall. So now was the first time after a few months that I got to try it and I sent it in my first go of the day. So psyched!”

How did you warm and keep warm during the send?
I had a self-made fingerboard and I tried to do a few single moves to kinda get warm. The go where I sent it was actually the „warm-up go“ 😅 At the two crimps just before jumping out to the edge, my fingers were so cold that I didn’t feel anything.

"As for questions, it would be good to cover where the idea for 8a.nu came from, how the site has evolved over the years, what your day-to-day role looks like as the editor in chief, and some of the most rewarding/challenging aspects of managing the website/community." More info on Tenaya. Tune in at 9 pm Euro Time - Tenayaclimbing

Illya Bakhmet-Smolenskyi, 15, who lately has been living in Turkey where he has done 17 routes 8b+ and harder, tells us about a Citdibi 8a database, a potential new hardcore Mecca. (c) Pim Shaitosa

"Citdibi is near Antalya. The place is almost like a quarantine zone itself. No people or shops around, just a tiny village which has not more than 10-20 houses. Complete peace resides here, so it's really nice during and after Covid-19.

For a long time being Turkey and its Geyikbayiri obtained the title of an "amateur climbing crag". No hard and confirmed routes and a huge load of easy climbs made it an ultimate area for beginners and pre-pro dudes with seemingly no potential for hard grades. Even though it could be called my home crag and the place had a major influence on my climbing evolution, it starts to seemingly run out of its potential for progression.

That's when I discovered a magnificent crag of Cidtibi, which was mainly developed and discovered by Tobias and Duygu Haug and some other locals for quite a while now. It's an enormously huge, slightly overhanging wall full of beautiful tufa strips and crimp sections. The tick list already has more than fifty routes starting with 8a and harder, not counting all the unclimbed projects and potential routes. And developing here gets faster and faster! Numerous new FA's in 8c and higher grade, hard routes that start to border with the mythical 9a's and projects that are seemingly much harder than that! The "new" route that already had two ascents but no grading is supposed to be one of those bordering ones.

One of the shortest and hardest lines in Chidtibi, which goes solely on crimps and doesn't have any proper rest. It could be described as a hardcore non-stop finger killer with a stretchy dyno at the very end, which kept shutting me down for almost ten goes! In my opinion, this route, with a bunch of other not-climbed harder projects on the Chidtibi wall will slowly lead us to Turkey's climbing evolution."