Jongkuk Seo, father of Chaehyeon (15) who won the Lead World Cup last year, reports that his climbing gym, as well as most gyms in South Korea, have opened up and there is no restriction how many can enter. "Official restriction is if we open gyms; we have to wear mask, use hand sanitizer when visiting gyms and write down a visitor book. In Korea, there’s no restriction for going rockclimbing so we boulder also outdoors nowadays! Whenever we have to close the gym, we go out to the mountain."

IFSC has presented their 2019 annual report and all the figures show a great increase since 2018.

Andy Gullsten, who previously has done some 25 boulders 8B+ and 8C, reports on Insta that he has done the FA of Silver Lining 8C in Hyvinkää some 45 min from Helsinki in Finland. (c) Joonas Sailaranta Andy says it took him six proper sessions to do the projects since some 20 years and that it is his proudest FA. All gyms are closed in Finland but there are no real outdoor restrictions. "People have been advised to keep distance and to avoid crowded areas. There are still few projects around and I am sure more to be found."

Based on a poll with some 700 unique climbers, where they marked what they missed the most in the Covid-19 situation, here is the result. 27 % Climbing outside 15 % Being outdoors 13 % Socializing with climbers 12 % Climbing in the gym 09 % Doing/Planning trips 07 % Pushing at your limit 06 % Staying fit 03 % Following a training program 02 % Following competitions 02 % Adrenaline In total, 8 % said they climb like normal.

For 16 years in a row we have made a poll asking, Best climbing shoes? Based on 1 600+ unique votes we can see that it is the Italian shoe makers who totally dominate. In comparison to last year, Scarpa has strengthen their role as runner up after La Sportiva. 42 % La Sportiva (43 % in 2019) 32 % Scarpa (28 %) 08 % Tenaya (8 %) 08 % Five Ten (10 %) 10 % Other brands (12 %) Most mentioned are Ocun, Boreal

Samuel Ometz comments his send of L'oeuvre 9a in Salvan which he did last month. "I first tried the route in fall 2018 when Shawn (Raboutou) made the FA and I fell in love straight away. I tried it alot in spring -19 and was really close but couldn't finish it. Then many rainy days and always slightly wet holds didn't help either... then fall was just too wet. I sent it in march this year, on my 12th session I think. It was at the very start of the restrictions in Switzerland. We are strongly advised to stay home and avoid sports at risk but no interaction. You won't get a bill for hiking or going climbing in a small group but the government advises against it as you could injure yourself. I just climb on my home wall, mixing short boulders and power endurance. Also some weighted pull ups, rings and core. It's also a good time to do stuff like stetching/mobility training that I never find time to do normally. I use that time to go hunt for boulders/cliffs to to stay connected with the outdoors.”

Marine Thevenet was an active IFSC competition climber for ten years starting from 2004, being 15-years old. Since 2007, she did 15 Lead World Cups and Championships and her worst result was #29. In 2014, she did her only full Boulder World Cup and she was #7 overall. In total, the lawyer working full time, has done 47 boulders in the 8th grade out of which 20 of them in the last 12 months, including her first 8B, Nuthin' but Sunshine in RMNP. (c) Clément Lechaptois "So I started when I was 10 mostly in the gym and I competed a lot. Honestly, I don’t know why climbing became my sport and my passion. Before that, as a child, I tried other sports. But since my first days of climbing until now, there was no place for other sports and hobbies. Maybe because of my climbing friends; the fact that we spent our summer holidays climbing together and that is possible only with outdoor sports. Last five years I was more focused on rock climbing. After the world championship in Bercy, I felt that I have no longer my place in the competition and that was less funny as it could have been before. So I decided to keep climbing outside. About training... I always liked to train! My years as a competitor learned me how to establish a training plan. I tried each year to focus on a weakness and to keep doing the things that I love (hold crimps in panels!) My motivation is to make progress; at least to try the lines that make me dream. It is easy for me to be motivated since most of the time I spot Clément on dreaming lines so I always discover amazing boulders! I have a very busy work; so during the week, I can only train in gyms. I climb outside during the weekends only. I try to take advantage of the lockdown to rest. In the first two weeks, I didn’t do anything. A little bit of yoga; but I just rested. Now, I do some smartboard training and I tried new stuff: Yoga and Stretching! The things that I always wanted to try but I was always too busy. The important thing for me is to respect the security measures and to stay at home. I am not worried at all about the fact to stop training/climbing during months; I will climb later.