NEWS

Jeremiah Low 8B by Alex Puccio
Alex Puccio, who previoulsy has done five 8B+', has done her 32nd 8B, Jeremiah Low in Coal Creek. (c) Bodyenroute "Haven't been climbing or training all that much over the last 3 weeks so I was pleasantly surprised with a cheeky little send today on this boulder. ;) Had to try a bit harder than wanted, but pulled it out I guess." The last weeks, Alex has done several training clinics and had a sinus infection so that is why she has taken it easy the last period.

Le Cadafist 9a by Hugo Parmentier
hugo parmentier has had his, "Most unbelievable and crazy ascent ever. Super pumped, super long, fucking epic 3days," while doing Le Cadafist 9a in St Lรฉger. During the same trip he also did La ligne claire 8c+ and both routes just took five goes each. More comments on Insta. "With the impression I could never to it, I barely stuck the reachy mouv and grabbed the final jug. All of this to say that I've had the strongest and most intense feeling I ever experienced in climbing. It was unbelievable and crazy."

IFSC has postponed the Combined European Championship in Moscow and also the Bouldering World Cup in Meiringen. IFSC Europe has said that there will be no European senior or youth comps in April and May. "Our goal is to hold some events later in the season, so we will try to postpone rather then cancel, whenever possible."

Martina Demmel (18) amazing progress via onsight and outdoor focus
Martina Demmel has been climbing for three years out of which the last two years she has only climbed outdoors! Amazingly, the 18-year-old is #2 in the 8a ranking game and it is almost only about onsights. 18 months after she started to climb she onsighted her first 7c. Checking all her 8a's and harder, more than 50 % she has done second go, including two 8b+'s the last three weeks. More pics on her Insta. "I've always been a lot in the mountains with my parents since I could walk and I always loved it to be outside but never had something to do with climbing. Then 2017, a friend took me to our local little climbing cellar and I immediately fell in love with these movements and everything that comes with climbing like travelling, seeing new landscapes and cultures and meeting new people from all over the world. The first year, I mainly climbed indoors and just had around 20 days on rock but in spring 2018, I had enough of these dusty gyms and since then I'm only climbing on rock. I only climb on rock, I don't do any other training for power or endurance. But I do a lot of stretching every day which helps me pretty much especially because I'm quite small (1,57m) and I try to do some antagonist training two times per week. Just to see as many beautiful places as possible and to push my limits further but there's no real goal to climb a certain grade rather a few stunning lines I've in my mind and for sure to always do it just because I truly love it. I'm just a random girl who loves the climbing lifestyle nothing really special...

Off the Wagon sit 8C+ by Daniel Woods
Daniel Woods has done Shawn Raboutou's Off the Wagon sit 8C+ in Valle Bavona. (c) Mary Macklenburg How did you prepare and how many sessions did it take? Spent like 11 days total (7 last year. 4 for stand and 3 for sit). Nothing too crazy for training. Was injured in November so took two months off and had like three weeks to prep in January for the trip I am currently on. In that three weeks I climbed at Tension alot and used the Moonboard a bit. I was just stoked when I got to swiss and immediately started trying a ton of hard shit. In the first couple weeks of climbing I rotated through trying Wagon, a couple 8B+s, an 8C, 8B, and did some 8As. Eventually my body just became accustomed to rock and hard moves, sent some hard rigs, got confidence, then it was time to take down Wagon." More comments on his Insta.

Victimes del Futur 9a (8c+) by Alex Totkova (15)
Alex Totkova, the only junior who did beat Oriane Bertone in a comp last year, has done Victimes del Futur 9a (8c+) in Margalef. (c) Fazabrushes "The route is really steep with small pockets that suit me. There is a rest before the crux. At the beginning I was taking the crux pocket with right hand but one day before going home I tried the original (left hand) beta and did it too. On the last day of our trip I didโ€™t know which beta is better. The try before I send it I was so close with the original (left hand) but my foot slipped. I was nervous because I knew that I have only one more go....... booom :)" More info and pics on her Insta..

IFSC has sent a mail to the mayor of Moscow asking their European Championship, starting in nine days, to be rescheduled to June. The Danish Climbing Federation has decided to cancel the Nordic Championship in Copenhagen scheduled to this weekend due to the Coronavirus. USA Climbing has, among other things, postponed their Open Nation Championship. Kletterzentrum Innsbruck has said they allow only 100 rope climbers and 100 boulders. You are only allowed to climb for four hours. UKC reports that CWIF in Sheffield this weekend will only be allowed for spectators.

Daniel Woods has done his sixth 8C+, Off the Wagon sit in Valle Bavona. Shawn Raboutou made the FA adding an 8A sit to the original Nalle Hukkataival line. "Each session I put 50/50 odds on myself if it would go down or not. This soon turned into a mental battle. I was pretty limit on the send, but somehow managed to maintain zone state and top it out. Top 3 power blocs in the world for me. Nice work shawn for establishing the blocs full line!" Including also 26 8C's, Daniel is the boulderer in the world with the most impressive ticklist.

Ghisolfi in Arco quarantine long way from Tokyo
Stefano Ghisolfi, #2 in the Lead WC in 2018, has been focusing on Combined during the whole winter trying to get an Olympic ticket in the Euro Ch. in Moscow starting in ten days. Due to the coronavirus, there are now severe restrictions until April 3rd in Italy and he might loose his dream. "The situation in Italy is quite critical now. We have to stay home and cannot travel outside our towns. We can go out only for primary needs, to buy food or go to work, but everything is going to be closed now. I and Sara already decided to stay home a few days ago, we train in our garage and wait until the situation gets better. Her immune system is not effective because of a kidney transplant, for this reason for her is important not to be in contact with the virus. The virus didn't arrive yet in Arco, but it could so everybody is invited to stay home to avoid contact with other people outside the family. For climbing, Asian championship has already been canceled and so it could be the European championship, I hope it will be postponed, but in any case, it will be impossible to arrive in Moscow from Italy, and in ten days it probably will be hard for other countries to travel to Moscow. I think is very important to follow these rules now for Italy, and other countries can learn from what happened here and try to avoid it before it spreads too much around Europe. Everything is closed but I'm quite lucky I have a good wall in my garage so the only thing I can do is keep training but at home! Stretching in the morning and boulder, circuits or hangboard in the afternoon, and I will have time for reading books and work on my social media between the sessions. The problem of climbing outdoor is that if an accident happens, is it very dangerous to go to the hospital because of the virus, so for the moment, we will climb only at home. It is possible to go outside to walk or hike, in places where there are no people, close to home.

Onsights up to four grades harder than redpoint
Climbstat has based on the 8a database published an interesting graph showing how much harder it is to onsight compared to redpoint. The analysis goes in hand with the 8a system giving three grades minus fives to the onsight ascents. It should, however, been mentioned that we plan to increase the onsight bonus with ten points possibly encouraging climbers to focus more on onsights rather than redpointing. "This indicates that an onsight becomes harder the harder you climb. The average onsight maximum is 2-3 grades lower for climbers who climb up to 7a or 5.11d redpoint but it increases to almost 4 grades for climbers with a maximum grade of 8a or 5.13b (and still widens further)."