Loic Zehani, who did his first 9b last year, has done his 15th 9A by the FA of Les Fakirs in Orgon. "In France the lockdown lasted 2 months. Since may 11 we are allowed to move around our house within a radius of 100 kilometers. We were able to do a lot of campus boarding and we were lucky to have a natural boulder with many holds located just 500 meters to my home. We made resistance circuits. So the recovery was not really a recovery. "Les fakirs" is a stamina overhanging route of 32 movements. After that, you have a rest and you finish in a nice and fingery 8a+. It's not all natural but it's a very nice line. It took me about 10 tries. The first part was bolted by my father and the second part by Thomas Sandri.

Oriane and Max Bertone, from Reunion outside Madagascar, were in Paris for the French Youth Championship when the lockdown started. After 60 days in quarantine they have been able to visit Fontainbleau again and quickly done five 8A's each. It should be mentioned that this includes Max doing A Lay's Blaise assis which he suggest a personal down grade to 8A+. Their father Stefano comments, "The whether is incredible in Font. Cold and dry. Boulders seem so easy!" Oriane has the last year done 18 boulders 8A to 8B including one flash and she is #3 in the female ranking game. Max has done 18 boulders 8A to 8A+ and he is #14 among the juniors up to 19 years old, although just being 13.

Paul Robinson added his first 8A boulder to his scorecard in 2003. Now 17 years later, he has logged #1 000, out of which close to 200 FA's, and comments, "Wow. What an incredible journey. I feel so lucky for the life I have. Can I do another 1k?!" Including 21 8C's, out of which seven FA's, and 14 flashes 8A+ and 8B, Paul should be considered one of the leading boulders in the world during the last 20 years. "n 2003, at the age of 16, I climbed my very first 8A, the Egg in Squamish. As I continued to climb my goal has always been to climb as much as I can and to build a big pyramid for myself. I wanted to climb every style of every grade. A few years ago, I realized that reaching 1000 was an actual possibility. I could not believe it. I have been fortunate enough to be able to climb all over the world on some of the best boulders around. I was also lucky enough to make the first ascent of a few five-star gems along the way too. While in Switzerland, I thought I was going to be able to complete my journey to 1000. Then, with covid-19, I was forced to head back to the USA. Since returning home, I spent the quarantine time building a climbing wall and training. When I returned back outside, I felt weak but with a few sessions, I started to feel strong again. I am now feeling really good and excited for some more lines in Colorado! I had plane tickets to South Africa for this summer but because of Covi, I will not be able to make the trip. Yesterday, I reached 999 and then 1000 with two fun 8B's on the Coal Creek Boulder. The boulder is pretty amazing and there are a lot of hard lines left! I am not sure if 2000 will be possible but I am really going to try for it!"

In most sports, curse and obscenity screaming are considered bad behavior and you could actually get peneltied doing it. It is the same in competition climbing where you get a yellow card for cursing. However, outdoors it seems it is getting more popular to curse after falling. Talking to many landowners and neighbours over the years it seems the thing they get most upset of is hearing “P-y” over and over again. In Göteborg, one crag has just been shut down because of the various bad behaviour of climbers.

As the Covid-19 restrictions have started to ease up around the globe it is expected that there will be a rock climbing boom in May. Many climbers are eager to get out in the nature and in Sweden, with almost no restrictions, there have been more climbers than ever. In one case in Göteborg, an access problem with the nearby occurred and one of the best sectors has temporarily? been closed. It might be a good time for local clubs, gyms and experienced climbers to address the problem with access (article) and also safety as there probably will be many outdoor beginners on the crags. Furthermore, dangerous routes and boulders should be avoided by the experienced as we do not want to burden the hospital with broken legs, etc.

Measuring the number of hardcore ascents, 2020 has not started well due to the Covid-19 crises. However, during the last few days, we have seen that especially the competition climbers have started to send hard. With all the comp cancellations, the uncertainty of the remaining, and that most gyms are still closed it just might be that the competitors will focus and send hard outdoors. One limiting factor could be travel restrictions but as most countries have plenty of at least 8c's to 9a's, it is expected that 2020 will be a record year for the competition climbers. Another limiting factor could be that "old-school" grades in central Europe are harder in comparison to the more modern routes in Spain :)