Melissa Le Neve reports on Insta that she has done Christian Bindhammer's Bionic Commando 8c+ in Bavaria and it took some 7 sessions. (c) Fabi Buhl "I was lucky to be in Bavaria (Germany) and there was no lockdown like in France, Spain or Italy. Only some social restrictions and hygiene measures. There is plenty of crags so the important thing is to keep social distancing and if somebody is already trying the route you want to try you bail and you find a plan b. Melissa is one of the best multi-discipline climber having also done 8B+ boulder, 8b+ MP. The 30-year-old finished her competition career in 2016 being #3 in the Boulder World Cup. Lately she has started up a work as a trainer and currently, she trains some high profile climbers like Matilda Söderlund. "Well I’m keen to train motivated persons to reach their goals outside or in competition. I believe that training is like a chess game where you need to bet on a pass and see the result. With Matilda it works super well so far!"

Pierre Délas, running Fanatic Climbing, reports in french that based on a rockfall accident in France 2010, the isurance compnay of the French federation has been ordered to pay 1.5 million to a climber. Because of this, the federation now disclaims its responsibility in climbing accidents. "Now the opinion of the federation is to forward the responsibility to local authorities like cities, departments or regions. The problem here is that the French federation has since the 80's written conventions with owners and local authorities saying they were assuming the risks. Note with this decision of the french federation the development and preservation of french crags seem unclear and worrying for the future. The rockclimbing community is anxious. In my article, I have given some possible perspectives. 1: The will of french federation forward responsibility to local authorities. 2: Change the law for having responsibility for the climber. 3: Having a deal between all federations for finding a solution. 4: Create a new organism for delivering climbing permits and insurance. 5: Witnessing situations in other countries and taking some influences. 6: As rock climber be less consumer and more actor. Be more responsible and act for rock preservation and development Pierre and the whole french climbing community see a risk that some private landowners now will close their crags as they do not want to take the responsibility for accidents due to rock falls or rusty bolts. It should be mentioned that in many parts of the world, like in Sweden, it is assumed that you climb on your own risk. The landowner has no responsibility for activities on their land just like when somebody is skiing or hiking on their land. However, when there are organized activities, it is the commercial company or the club that has the responsibility.

Fanatic Climbing has published a full length interview with the Mawev brothers who both have qualified to the Olympics. (c) Julia Cassou To sum up: No trainer, no plan, no gym training... just climb, climb, climb... and doing pull-ups. Bassa #2 in Speed WCH 2018 I’m not an athlete who trains many times a day. I’m not a professional climber and I don’t have the time, I need to work too. Moreover, I like training just once in a day, most of the time from noon to 5 pm. I start my training with a one-hour warm-up then a one 1 pm, I start climbing hard. And then, I climb, I climb, I climb, I climb, I climb, I climb until I have no more skin on my fingers, no more nails, or have muscle cramps. And I hydrate, eat and sleep well which prevents this kind of problem. So if I begin to have muscle cramps during my training, that is because I have pushed beyond my limits. That’s when I know my training session is over. In a week, my schedule is simple. I do as I said before, and I repeat it Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. I push very hard at each training session to let it be the most efficient as possible. So train 20 hours a week where I just climb and in addition to that, I will doing 2 hours of daily yoga soon. It will start next week but I’m not in a hurry to start Yoga! (Laugh)." Michael - #1 Euro Boulder CH 2019 My coach? It’s Bassa! He coordinates and plans my training. But about exercises, we work together on it. For the organization, he’s the boss! For us, sessions are created by cycles, we function with repetition. We are telling that training is exactly like trying a difficult boulder problem. We are telling that exactly the same thing and you progress when you repeat and repeat until to feel well. So that the same process about training exercises, we practice it and repeat it until it’s ok and after we find another exercise.

Babsi Zangerl reports on Insta that she has done Unleashed 8c+ and Instructor 8c+/9a in Bregenzerwald. The latter is 45 m long and it was bolted by Jürgen Höfle. Jacopo Larcher did get the FA and also the picture. "I was curious to hop on this 45m monster line! It was all about trying as hard as I can!!! This is a line I am very proud of, I am not really good in steep climbing but investing some hard work/obsession really paid off. Thanks for the inspiration Jacopino!!! We trained at home for one month! We got a training setup from evolution climbing... and combined hang boarding campusing and some core training... but luckily we were allowed to climb on rock soon. So we were quite lucky compared to many other countries. Anyway, I think we all have to use our common sense (like social distancing, avoiding crowded crags) as climbers, as none of us want to go back into lockdown." Barbara Zangerl is a contender for being the best female rock climber out there. Until 2009, the Austrian was one of the best female boulderer until she stopped due to an herniated vertebral disc. In routes, she has now done four routes 8c+/9a or 9a and in multi-pitches and big-walls she is totally superior out of the female.

IFSC has in their latest report said that the Olympic qualification process will have to be concluded within 2020. This means that the result from the Combined Championship in Hachioji will decide the remaining quotas if not the Continental Championship will take place in 2020. Continental cancelations would then mean that Jernej Kruder, Ievgenia Kazbekova, Jongwon Chon and Chaehyon Seo would get European and Asian tickets. Furthermore, from Oceania and Africa, Harrison Campbell, Oceania Mackenzie, Curtis Calrin and Rachelle De Charmoy will make it.

Jernej Kruder, the Boulder WC 2018 winner, reports on Insta to have had very productive days doing eleven routes 8a and harder including the FA of Peščena ura 9a. (c) Martin Zorko The Slovenian is famous for often climbing outdoors as preparation for doing competitions. Last year he won one Bouldering WC and then he focused on Tokyo. His last chance qualifying is during the Euro Championship but if that is also cancelled he will get the last Euro ticket as he was #16 in the Combined World Championship.

Julia Fiser, Top-21 in the last four WC's, has come out the lockdown in great shape. Instead of preparing for Lead World Cups she is climbing outdoors and has done her first 8c, Der schwarze Schwan in Ötztal. (c) Katerina Fiser "The lockdown in Austria started on March 15th. We were only allowed to leave the house for basic human needs. So I spent a lot of time hanging on my hangboard on the balcony and doing different exercises to stay fit. One thing that helped me a lot to stay motivated was that the whole Austria climbing team did these sessions together online via live stream. A few weeks ago restrictions loosened up a bit, which meant we were allowed to do sports outside again. Since then, I’ve been spending a lot of time climbing outside, mostly trying to avoid crowded crags. I was surprised how good and confident I felt after a few climbing days so I decided it would be cool to try something hard, now that I have a lot of time to climb outside instead of preparing for the Lead world cups in the summer. It was always a dream of mine to climb 8c and this route seemed the most logical because it’s basically a wall with just this route and one 8a next to it, so there are never many people around. In the first session I just checked out the moves and although I did all the single moves, I felt really uncomfortable on the wall. I have not done such hard moves in a very long time, so I guess that was the reason for that. But I made some really fast progress and felt better and better every try and yesterday, on my 4th session on the route this year (and 5th sessions in total), I managed to send it first try."

In Sweden, it has been reported that in the trad area Bohuslän, some climbers have started to leave their gear and top rope overnight. One reason for this is that there are no bolted anchors and that the routes are being used for training instead of going to the gym. Many are complaining about this saying that it could create access problems. This behavior might spread. What do you think about this?

Ale Zeni, who last year put up the world's first 9a+ slab, comments his passion for slabs, his 9b FA Cryptography from January, and his big MP project. He woks in the military section of high mountains. "I love climbing on the slabs for some reason. The first one is because near my house in Primiero (Dolomites) there are just slabs and I grow up with the Manolo's routes. Also because I love the feeling of my body when I search the perfect balance, and I love looking for the really small crimps on the walls that in the beginning seems like a mirror. For Cryptography I made on my wall the crux of the route (replicas). Where I try it with the wight west to improve my finger power. I don't know exactly how many attempts I did. But approximately something like 40 attempts, during 14 trips, I including the attempts on Bain the Sang and Bimba Luna. The mp project is in Val Nuvola a beautiful 250 mt wall. Riccardo Scarian and I started bolting this new route from the ground with long runouts some years ago. We have already completed the first 4 pitches that could be: 7c+, 8b (8a obligatory); 7c, and the last one 8c. Then there are more 3 pitches that could be harder.

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