"This decision was not an easy one for us, but the health of everyone involved clearly comes first. We consulted with the coaches and also obtained the opinions of the athletes. From our point of view, a posting to Moscow due to travel warnings and restrictions is not responsible. " reports Austria Climbing on Insta. In other words, no Austrians will travel to Moscow to compete in the Euro Championship 20-29 November.

The last male and female from Europe going to the Olympics will be selected in the Moscow event. This means that Jakob Schubert and Jessica Pils are the only Austrians going to Tokyo 2021.

It should be noted that according to the Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs, a travel warning of the highest level 6 applies to Russia.

If the Moscow Championships are cancelled, Jernej Kruder from Slovenia and Ievgeniia Kazbekova from Ukraine will get the Euro Olympic tickets due to their results in the Combined World Championship last year.

If a boulder is much easier if you are 175 cm tall, then a 165 cm tall guy doing the FA needs to consider this once suggesting the FA grade. It could be the same if a guy with fat fingers can't squeeze in two fingers in a pocket, meaning he has to use just one finger or go for another beta. If it then feels like 8A he might opt for 7C+ or lower. If you are not using climbing shoes it might be hard to understand if it is easier with shoes so no blame on Charles Albert and his 9A proposal on No Kpote only but he has to be careful in the future suggesting 9A's.

Grades are based on the best possible sequence and also for the perfect size of that climb. A dyno where it is (almost) impossible for climbers below 185 cm should not be graded 9A based on how it feels for the 170 cm climbers. That dyno grade should be based on how it feels for the 185 cm guys, which might be 8A.

Martina Demmel has done her tenth 8c in 2020 by the FA of Formiert 8c in Kochel. Interesting is that she started climbin in 2017 when she reached 7a and now the 18-year-old is #2 in the 8a ranking game.

"I've been "Voi miad" after clipping the chains of this old forgotten project/combi (from Markus Meier; thx Toni L. for motivating me to give it a try) at Afrikawand within 4 tries but with knowing some sections pretty well already, which makes the grading even harder;) no possibilities to rest during this 38 moves resistance beast! The direct and more logical version of "Ratzfatz..." Biggest thanks Isi for all the belays including the sending one. More infos on Insta:).

Just barely possible to chalk up a few times which means that it's maybe the one longest continious sequence I've done so far as I normally find some hidden rests to shake out which unfortunately didn't happenend in this one...👐😅"

Federations put in a lot of money and effort in their national teams competing abroad. In 2020, a lot of money were saved for the federations due to all the cancelled competitions. At the same time most athletes have been training with a focus on indoor hoping for the international competition scene to open up soon again. As it stands, I think the federations should begin to also focus on outdoors in order to give their athletes new motivation as we do not know how the scene will look like in 2021.

Hopefully it will be more normal with many international comps for both seniors and juniors but possibly they might not be considered as World Cups or Championships etc as long as all climbers can travel without any restrictions. If this is true, it might be wise for the federations to also start a focus on outdoors especially for the youth as otherwise, they just might loose their motivation being part of a team only training indoors.

Further more, instead of sending few of the best athletes to international comps, it might also be wise for the federations to take some of this money to try to arrange more national competitions. The Austria Federation did, as an example, a great job setting up their summer series in order to give their competition climbers some more local competition to train for and get challenged by. In the long run, it is maybe a good idea for the federations, at least for the youth, to also set up national rock climbing teams?

What is the hardest to achieve, an 8A boulder or an 8b route? Over the years, we have a couple of times published some diagrams trying to compare route and boulder grades. Interesting is that a 6A boulder is possible as hard as 6C = six grades discrepancy. Then the closer we get to 8A, the discrepancy reduces until it starts to increase again and 9A is possibly as hard as a 9c route = six grades discrepancy again.

Jan-Luca Posch has done his first 8C, Sierra Madre in Zillertal. Video on his Insta. Until ten months ago, his hardest boulder was an 8A flash and later he has done six 8B and harder. The picture is from Agnet 8A+ in Flatanger.

Do you think your progress relate from you previously focusing on comps and seldom going outdoors? And what is next?
I think it's a combination of both. For sure the hard training in the gym and the comps, but also rockclimbing, where you also learn a lot about trying really hard. I won the european championships in bouldering in the juniors in 2017, also I got 3rd at the junior world championships in bouldering 2017. I didn't reach the top level in the seniors yet. My best international result in the seniors was this year at the studio bloc masters, where I could reach the finals among many top world cup climbers.

This fall I will focus on rockclimbing. There are so many world class boulders and routes I want to climb here in austria. Around Nov/Dec I will start to prepare for the next worldcup season in lead and bouldering, and hopefully reach my goals there. Also, I have many projects on rock that I want to send :)

Daniel Woods is the best boulderer in the world having done some 30 8C's and a handful 8C+' since 2008. However, comparing annual tick lists, Daniel or any other boulder, are not close to what Drew Ruana has done during the last 12 months; 3 8C+', 9 8C's and 20 8B+'. Amazingly, last October he had only done one 8B+ and he was still doing World Cups in Japan trying to make it to Tokyo. Then there was the the Covid-19 lockdown and in September he started Chemical engineering at Colorado School of Mines. (c) Alton Richardsson from Drew's Insta, where you can find many videos of his hardest sends.

How was this amazing progress possible?
I don’t know, I think it’s just the way I pick climbs. I like to build a base before trying a hard hard project and then it makes climbing feel easier. An 8C now feels like 8B+ did in February. I don’t train at all right now, I feel way physically weaker than I was before. Just better at linking stuff together. I also went vegetarian in July , and that’s when I started sending a lot of stuff fast haha. (His father says, "He was so stressed out on the World Cup and was miserable. I think climbing outside with friends and in nature has really rejuvenated him.")

Which has been the hardest boulder and the most beautiful you have done? Echalo 8C (+) was the hardest of the recent ones. It took me nine days. (Most beautiful) Probably White noise or Dicktopia (8C's).

What is next? There’s probably 15 other 8B+ to 8C+ boulders I got really close on but never sent too 🤷‍♂️. There’s also a few more 8C and 8C+ boulders around here I wanna do but I’m not sure yet gotta see what looks cool.

How much how you been climbing outdoors lately?
4-5x a week. My normal amount. I just go by myself to whatever I’m psyched on or I get one friend to come with. But I have to be focused to get al my school done.

It should be mentioned that Drew was #13 in the Combined World Championsip last year, missing to qualify to Tokyo by one spot. Later the 21-year-old skipped the last chance to qualify in the Continental. During the years, Drew has made the headlines some 20 times mainly as a route climber. His first appearance was in 2012 when he as age 12 did his first 8b+. Being 16-years-old he did his first 9a. Here is an 84 minutes podcast with Thundercling from September and here is one from May with The Nugget.