If you do some route reading before you go for an onsight, your chances for success will improve. Start by looking for places where you can rest. Then try to identify the cruxes. Often they begin like 50 cm above a clip. Look for different solutions that could be used. It is valuable if you can do the route reading together with a friend, just like in the world cup, although your friend will not try to onsight it. Explain and share your thinking and solutions.

When it comes to safety, it is quite normal to have the first or even second quickdraw pre-clipped. Possibly a friend could help you out with this. Alternatively, you could use a clip stick or just grab the first quickdraw to reach the second bolt. Once you start climbing, most top climbers think it is ok to down climb once if you mess up. When it comes to belaying a friend a route you also would like to try to onsight, it is in the grey zone, as also safety is jeopardized. Any belayer that learns from belaying, even if always looking down and never looking at the climber, could later not claim to onsight it. It should be mentioned that onsight ethics were much stricter in the early days of sport climbing as you were supposed to place all quickdraws on lead. Anybody using the ethics of today, as above, would be laughed at.

Fabrizio Peri, who did his first 9a at age 42, has done his third, The Bomb in Collelpardo. "Before the lockdown I managed to send a project that I had been trying for two years. It is a connection of about 90 movements which starts with the most of the 8b+ Callagan and then continues with a 10 meters traverse into the second half of Sitting bull of 8c+/9a."

So how is it possible to be in peak performance almost 50-years-old?
It's possible if you have a great passion and if you like to always train to the maximum ... and you must be lucky to not get injured. I am a lover of training and I like to study and always try new methodologies. I am a military teacher of physical education and climbing and I can train two times a day for an hour and a half per session.

Charlotte Andre, who was #14 in Chongqing in 2018, has flashed Le mur du son assis 8A+ in Fontainebleau, video. She was mainly a competition climber before the lockdown and had just bouldered few days in Font previously. Before she made the second ever 8A+ flash, after Ashima Shiraishi, she had just done a handful 8A's and now few days later she has done eleven. (c) Block’Out

"It was the first time I was in Font for ten full days and with a genuine drive to climb after being in lockdown for two months. The first days I discovered a new (for me ) but "classic" area: Le cuvier rempart with the first 8a of the forest and the "big five" famous and incredible boulders. Then, I realized that my fingers felt very strong. Manu (Cornu) told me that he tried the perfect boulder for me the previous week, a basic and short boulder, where "you are able to hold the crimps or not". I decided to try this problem but I was not thinking of flashing it. Once there Manu gave me all the betas. Just before trying, I was thinking to climb the stand 7C but he advised me to try directly the sit start... And well it worked!

I crushed the crimps one after the other. I was focused on my climbing and just thinking to go to the next hold. When I got the last jug, I started to realize I could do it and started to think and shake.... It was such a struggle in the easy mantle, haha."

Patxi Usobiaga, one of Adam Ondra's trainers, has done the FA of La Fuga 9a in Coll de Nargo. The 39-year-old has now done 15 routes 9a and harder, most of them prior to his traffic accident in 2010 when he sustained an injury to a disc in his neck. In both 2006 and 2007, Patxi was the 8a climber of the year and in 2009, he won the World Championship. (c) Alexander Hick

"During the confinement, the first month we were sick for a month at home. We do not know if it was the Covid-19 since at that time there was no option to do any test. Once we recovered, we started training at home. It was a very rare moment, since the social status, fear and situation meant that you did not have a motivation to train. To train, you need to have a goal, and the goal was unclear.

Due to my old injury, I had to undergo surgery a year ago where they transplanted a disc, that is, they put an artificial disc (C5-C6) on me, and little by little I felt better. It is true that I have limitations, in big overhangs, I am very limited, but in the process of not so steep climbing, it is really as if there was no injury."

It has been announced that there will be no international comps in China in 2020, beside trials for the Olympic 2022. This should mean all three WC will be cancelled as well as the Olympic qualification. If there will be no Olympic qualification event in 2020, Chaehyon Seo and Jongwon Chon will make it based on their results in the World Championship. Source: Canadian Climbing News

Jakob Schubert and Johanna Färber won the first leg of the Austria Summer Series.

In order to improve the database, 220.000 duplicated routes and 20.000 duplicated crags have been merged. Security measures have been very high. Please send comments to support if you see any mistake and we will correct it manually.

Zander Waller, who was #3 in the Pan Am Olympic qualifications, has flashed Social Distancing 8A+ in 11 mile. The 16-year-old has also done three 8B's, six 8A+' and one 8c route during the last month which he mainly spent around RMNP. The pic is from Honor Amongst Thieves 8A+.

"The flash was relatively unexpected, but the climb itself may have been soft. It was not really my style so who knows. The top out ended up being the crux because it was the middle of the night and I had no headlamp, and I was very close to falling. There was no beta for the top out though. I am excited to try much harder boulders in the near future."