Hamish Mcarthur, #2 and #5 in the Youth World Boulder and Lead Championships last year, has done two 8c+/9a's in Siurana in just two sessions each; Jungle Speed and A Muerte. Amazingly, the previous best for the 17-year-old was 8a. "I never really get the chance to climb on rocks due to school, training and where I live, so I went into the trip with a big tick list but few expectations. I hadn't lead outdoors in over a year and my previous hardest grade was 8a due to lack of trying anything harder. So after an easy first day, to get on an infamous 8c+/9a "jungle speed" and send it within 2 sessions came as a bit of a surprise. Maybe it was just a fluke? After celebrating for new years I took a much needed rest day (a lot of climbing and dancing) before heading out to try "a muerte" as recommended to me by Will Bosi. Similarly to jungle speed, this too falls between 8c+ and 9a so a quick ascent of this (also with 2 sessions) solidified that it wasn't fluke and training on plastic really can get you strong for rock! I have some big goals for 2020, alongside A levels I plan to compete in junior and senior international competitions. I hope to make another podium at the Youth European and World Championships (preferably gold this time...) as well as make my first final at a senior world Cup. After the comp season I plan on getting back on some international rock to find a project and hopefully send some more classic, hard lines!"

Matt Fultz has done his sixth and hardest 8C, The Game in Boulder Canyon."V15/16 seems fair, especially for my height. So stoked!" (c) James Lucas It was put up ten years ago by Daniel Woods calling it 8C+. However, later he returned and thought it was 8C due to some holds seemed to have gotten bigger, due to brushing, creating a new sequence. Last week, the 183 cm tall flashed his second 8B, Iron Resolution 8B. Interesting is that Matt (28) has had his best year by far the last 12 months and he is #3 in the ranking game. The 28-year-old has had an almost continuous progress the last ten years and if this will continue, he just might be #1 before we turn 2021.

IFSC has appointed the officials for the Olympic Games. Chief Routesetter Lead - Adam Pustelnik (POL) Routesetter Lead - Hiroshi Okano (JPN) Routesetter Lead - Jan Zbranek (CZE) Chief Routesetter Bouldering - Percy Bishton (GBR) Routesetter Bouldering - Manuel Hassler (SUI) Routesetter Bouldering - Katja Vidmar (SLO) Routesetter Bouldering - Romain Cabessut (FRA) Pustelnik and Hassler were the designated setters in both the Hachioji and Toulouse Olympic qualifying events. Bishton is Director of the Route Setters Commission which does ongoing reviews. Vertical-Life has published a very interesting article in their new Route Setter magazine where Liam Lonsdale discusses the pressure etc the setter will face in Tokyo.

"Niki Wiechmann, is probably best known for the Boulder World Cup analysis he does for Beta Routesetting on Youtube. Niki is also a talented setter in his own right, and in RSM Vol. 2 he shares his work flow beta when setting commercial boulder problems. We hope you enjoy the read and wish you all a good week of setting (and tweaking)!" By the Route setter magazine for Euro 8.

Michi Wyser and Andres Lietha bolted the 400 m pitch in Rätikon 27 years ago. Now Fabian Buhl has made the FA of Déjà with 12 pitches up to 8c+. Having done 9a and an 8C boulder, the German is one of the most accomplished multi-discipline climber in the world.

Vertical-Life has published their second issue of their Route setter magazine with several interesting articles. The first is Christian Popien's article about the history of the indoor scene. 1938 - Monitor Rock in Seattle but looked more like a castle 1969 - Concrete walls in Berlin and Munich 1974 - Dolomite huge boulders in Bolzano, still used 1985 - First detachable holds in France (Entre-Prises) 1987 - Public gyms in Seattle and Brussels 1992 - Bronx Rock in Cologne mainly top rope 2002 - First bouldering gym (Boulder - USA) (Also worth mentioning is that from the city centre of Amsterdam in 1996 you could reach eight big gyms within 45 minutes.)

Oriane Bertone has done her third and fourth 8B in Rocklands; Agamemnon and Ray of Light. "Proud to top this boulder! 4 sessions to send the crouch start version. 5 more sessions to send the sit start one. I had to add a pad to reach the holds, but I didn't want to start without the first movement which is really hard (I was still super stretched!) Nice end of stay in Rocklands! In the 8a ranking game, the 14-year-old and 161 cm tall, is #3. In total she has now done eleven 8B's and one 8B+. In the video, she is doing some other 8A's including one flash.

Consensus and average grading are how most think grading should be. This is normally correct but when it comes to height and finger size it is not the best practice. Let us say there is a boulder that feels like 8A if you are 155 cm, and then it drops one grade for every ten cm you add, i.e. a 195 cm tall guy think it is 7B. It is easy to think such a boulder should be graded 7C. This would mean that it would be popular especially by the very tall guys getting a very easy 7C tick. In other words, such boulder could instead be graded 7B+ morpho to better reflect the difficulty for the guys focusing on such (dyno) boulder. It is also the same thing with finger size and kids and short female doing hard routes just because their physics better are suited to that finger pocket 8A a bigger FA put up.

Gonzalo Larrocha has done his 15th 9a, Ciudad de Dios in Santa Linya. The picture shows a new kneebar rest which he found just before the crux. "I spend four seasons on it, I don´t know how many tries I did, perhaps more than one hundred. That´s by far my hardest 9a. There is a sequence of five 5 moves that I only could do some days. That route is a direct start to Fabela wich I did in 2014. In Ciudad de Nios start you should make an 8c+ instead of the 8a start of Fabela.

Tanguy MERARD 🦐, who has onsighted 12 8a's, has done his first 9a, Ça chauffe in Seynes. He comments to Fanatic Climbing, "This route required to me a lot of patience and perseverance (something like 10 days), it was a harder process compared to my 2 previous 8c+ sends (“Les grandes bouches du Rhône” and “San Ku Kai”) so I propose 9a." Interesting is that he started training hard less than two years ago and since then he has had extraordinary progress, although also doing easier routes. His pyramid base is solid with 60 routes 8a and harder the last 12 months. (c) Williams Belle