Two weeks ago, Austria said that they will not send any athletes to the European Championship in Moscow 20 - 29 November. Last week, Germany, Switzerland, United Kingdom and Sweden informed that they will only send athletes that will compete in Combined. The Italians have not yet decided but Gabri Moroni, who recently was Boulder Champion, has told 8a that he will not go. In the starting list, there are five male from Czech Republic but Adam Ondra is not listed.

Natalia Grossman has done three 8A's on her first weekend trip to Joe Valley; I shaved my head for this (pictured), Barely Legal and Death Cream. In total, the 19-year-old studying Psychology and Business in the University, has done 32 boulders 8A to 8B during the last six months. Last year, Natalia got the silver in both Boulder and Combined in the Youth World Championship.

Is it not time to step up the game to 8B+ with such grade pyramid?
I was only there for the weekend, I’m psyched that I was able to try lots of fun climbs and I can’t wait to return! I am pretty busy with school so I don’t really want a long term project right now.

Nathaniel Coleman, who has qualified to Tokyo and who has previously has done one 9a, has sent his first 9a+, Empath in Tahoe. It was set up just two weeks ago by Carlo Traversi and later both James Webb and Daniel Woods have also done it. On Insta, Nathaniel thanks all three for beta and energy. (c) Ross Fulkerson

Do you know how many sessions the guys repeating it did used and what about the grade? (We asked FA Traversi.) Daniel and Jimmy put in about 10 days of work. Nathaniel a bit less, but we gave him all the beta. Hard to say if it’s soft when you have some of the best American climbers trying it in perfect conditions. Also, 9a+ isn’t the top of the scale anymore. It’s a hard route to grade. I honestly didn’t really know. Daniel told me it was comparable to First Round (9b). Jimmy said it was much harder than Dreamcatcher (9a). So those comparisons helped inform my grade suggestion. But it’s just a suggestion, as always with grades, time will tell. I will say though, everyone who has repeated it is capable of climbing 9a+ in a day if they find the right route. We just don’t have a lot of hard routes to test ourselves on in America.

Fans have been used increasingly for the last five years and some of the hardest boulders have lately been done with several fans following the climber blowing air from both sides. Once Dave Graham released his uncut Ali Baba 9b send, where he had a friend blowing air, also from a ladder during 15 minutes, some reacted negatively. In the video, Dave actually said in Spanish that it would not have been possible without the fan. He refers to 20+ degrees, 70 degrees humidity and no wind.

"Lots of hate on the fan, not sure why, wind is natural haha, and we use them a ton in bouldering? The cave gets zero wind so it helped on the really hot days, like when it was 35 degrees that was huge! Anyway, I read the comments and was like WTF. The whole thing depresses me, sucks to get so much hate for a hard ascent."

I am personally OK with that fan-ascent. The big issue is of course, what if fans are too good? What if some guys bring an industrial AC and a diesel generator as well having some guys hanging in ropes and then downgrade it to 9a+? What if the pros think it is so important that they carry up such a fan set up to make it easier to repeat Ondra's 9c in Flatanger?

"If people want “fan” support on routes, it would look ridiculous. This is an exaggerated fear for me. Would be the ultimate spectacle and a pain in the ass, comments Graham."

So what do you think? My thoughts, at this point, are that fans are in the grey area like that we can not draw an exact line when it comes pre-clipped quickdraws. I have no problem as a fan is not used in a systematic way to create better friction than in good climbing conditions as we should not use pre-clipped QDs in order to make the climb easier. But if QDs are for safety reasons or fans are for poor conditions, both situations are OK. It is up to the climber to decide if two or three pre-clipped quickdraws are ok due to safety reasons and when fans are OK. For me having several fan-boys or standing on ladders are, though, pushing it just to the limit.

Matt Fultz, has beside one 8C+, done his eight 8C in 2020, Death Star in Eldora. The 29-year-old has had an almost continues progress for ten years but nevertheless, during the last two years, the late bloomer has stepped to a new level. Picture from his Insta, where he says, "Brilliant boulder from @dawoods89! Took me several sessions of work, but very happy to do it 2nd go today since my shoulder is usually sore for a week after I try it 😵."

Jacob Schubert has had a great trip to Arco with the Austrian National team. During five climbing days he did Beginning 9a (+), Omen Nomen 9a and Thunder Ribes 9a (8c+). The best male competition climber during the last ten years, also did six routes 8b+ to 8c+, including the onsight of 5 Uve, More info on his Insta. (c) Heiko Wilhelm

Palmer Larsen skips 8c+ and does his first 9a, Algorithm in The Fins. He projected it for some 15 days doing just some 30 tries as each try took some 45 minutes.

"Solving an algorithm is exactly what I felt like I was doing in order to send that route. It’s 40m long with a boulder crux at about half way and then two boulder cruxes right at the top. Each effort would be about 45 min so it took a lot each time I pulled on. I put about 15 days of work into the route and over 30 tries over the course of the past few months and sent it on probably the last day of the season before it gets too cold.

Perfect beta, temps, skin, mental toughness and desire, and just a bit of luck for it to all come together. Cheer to Johnathan for finding and getting the FA of the line. It felt impossible at first to me so I couldn’t imagine what he had to go through."

Climbing is unique when it comes to performances and age. There is no other sport where you can perform on a world-class level in between age 9 and 50. Probably we will not regularly see 9-year-old kids doing 9a but most likely several guys 55+ will do 9a within ten years. Among the ladies, Muriel Sarkany did Era Vella 9a (8c+) at 43 but within ten years, we just might have several 50+ female doing 8c+. Among the male, Chuck Odette having done an 8c (b+) being 64-year-old should have the "world record" of grade relative to age.

The reasons why climbing is unique in this sense are mainly that kids benefit from having smaller fingers and also that they can not get pumped as adults. Talking about the high performing old boys, they take advantage of climbing being a technical, tactical and mental sport. Anyone who wants to bet against Dani Andrada does a 9a in 2030?

Stefan Scarperi, who did his first 8C in March, has done the FA of Big Illusion 8c in Val Daone. "Amazing line, long progress 10 days over two years. For sure my hardest boulder so far!"

The Italian has done some 40 IFSC senior boulder comps since 2011. In 2015, he got the bronze in the European Championship and last year he was #16. "This year I will not compete. Now I'm focusing more on rock climbing. Next year, I do not know?"