Giuliano Cameroni on the FA of Africa’s first 9a, a bouldery route in Rocklands, ZA. The line was found by Dave Graham and lately bolted by a local for Fred Nicole, who tried it for five seasons. This year, Fred allowed someone else to try, and Giuliano made the first ascent after three days of work.

Henning Wang, who has done three 8c+' in Villanueva del Rosario, has helped us out with the report of Sindre Saether doing Chilam Balam 9a+ (b) at that crag. It was put up by Berrnabe Fernandez suggesting it as the first 9b+ back in 2003 and has later been repeated by a handfull who all have down graded it. "In total Sindre invested 85 climbing days over 3 years in Chilam Balam either working parts, doing link-ups consisting of parts of the route, building fitness on the route after long forced breaks or having attempts on the route. In the end, he got to the last bolt of the route 15 times before sending and climbed the first 8c+ part 35 times. The time was spent mainly mid-winter (between November and February) in a lot of cold, wet and humid conditions. In 2018 he only got to try from the ground 5 days as the route was more or less constantly wet despite spending somewhere between 3-4 months in Villanueva that year. Sindre is in Norway known for his bigwall achievements, having freeclimbed a lot of hard aidlines in the Trollwall (most unrepeated), as well as Tsunami A4 (now 8a+) on Kjerag, as well as many other walls in Norway and around the world. That is not to say that Sindre isn´t an accomplished sport climbers as well, but since he isn´t on any social media and doesn't say much about what he does most people know very little about what he has climbed. If my count is correct Chilam marks his 6th route 9a or harder, the hardest before Chilam being La Novena Enmienda in Santa Linya in 2016."

Isabelle Faus, who did her third 8B+ this summer, has done her 23rd 8B, Jerimiah Daiabolical in Coal Creek. Isa extends her lead in the 8a ranking game.

Edu Marin, who just opened one of the hardest MP's in the world in China, has done the FA of The Clinic 9a+ in Quzhou. It is located in a big cave with incredible holes and it is like 20 meters long. The Spaniard bolted it in October and it has been an intense struggle to take it down. Now he feels in great shape and are looking forward to return home and continue with his projects in Catalunya.

1. Tomoa Narasaki JPN - Janja Garnbret SLO 2. Adam Ondra CZE - Miho Nonaka JPN 3. Jakob Schubert AUT - Akiyo Noguchi JPN 4. Kai Harada JPN - Shauna Coxey GBR 5. Bassa Mawem FRA - Alexandra Miroslaw POL 6. Alex Megos GER - Jessica Pilz AUT 7. Alberto Gines Lopez ESP - Julia Chanourdie FRA 8. Jan Hojer GER - Petra Klingler SUI It was nice to see that Adam Ondra had made some significant improvements in Speed but most probably, Tomoa Narasaki will be second or third in Speed so that is why he is #1. Furthermore, two Speed climbers are listed as it is almost 100 % that at least one will make it to the final but it could be anyone. It should also be mentioned that currently just 14 males and females have qualified. The remaining six spots go to the five Continental Champions and the next best respecting the country quota in the World Championship. Most interesting is if Jain Kim or Chaehyon Seo get the ticket in the Asia Championship. If so, especially Seo would have a chance for the podium.

Illya Bakhmet-Smolenskyi, who did his first 9a last year, has done two 8c's and two 8b+'s in Osp/Misja Pec during just ten days.

Eliot Stephens, who six months ago had done two 8B+', has had an amazing one month trip around Ticino where he did eleven boulders 8A+ and harder including three 8B+' andArzak 8C in Murgtal. "Great line from Fred with some excellent movement. A nice milestone. Love this style. Next time we go back... from the last, to the first. " The 27-year-old talks about Nicole's FAs, meaning his next goal is Dreamtime. How can you explain your recent peak performance? I had maybe 3 years of one bad finger pulley injury after another. Feel like I have been on the same level for a while, and don’t feel like I really jumped up a level in the last years, just things have started working out. I suppose if you work hard enough eventually he results come Mainly last 12 months I have avoided injury, that is really the key. Allowed my fingers to progress as they should have and not kept taking steps backwards. I also made more focus on rock climbing. And just tried more stuff near my limit." Next plan is to train until spring and then think about where to go next. want to get back to Swiss for Dreamtime

alizee dufraisse, who this summer did her third 8B, has done her seventh 8A+, Lethal Design in Red Rocks and it just took her one session. "It was tall so I was sycked there was a lot of pads for the ending! I think 9 pads and 3 good spot, haha. I had cold fingers and didn't check the top before. It was epic :) It is 8a+ tho! I stay in red rocks for 3 more weeks, probably try to do some route climbing too for keeping the resistance high for route climbing in Spain, but mostly bouldering because it s really cold here!"

We all know that whoever wins the Speed in Tokyo will advance to the final. Mathematically, getting 1 - 8 - 8 will probably mean #5 overall but also #4 or #6 is could be the case. In theory, a bronze is also possible but then, first of all, the two same climbers need to get both two first places in Boulder and Lead. Furthermore, whoever gets third in one discipline needs to be among the last in the others. However, the presumed four female Speed climbers in Tokyo could dramatically increase the possibilities for a bronze by sophisticated and non-Sportsmanship teamwork. First, they run in Speed and then they just help the winner to get the bronze by performing tactically in Boulder and Lead. In practice, this would mean that only the #2 in Speed tries to get a zone in boulder and then go as high as possible in Lead. This would mean #2, at worst, ends 2 *17 * 17 = 578. In Hachioji, 432 points were needed to make the final Top-8 but if we add two more Speed specialists, the #8 score would have been 720 points. Among the female 420 points were needed but once again having four Speed specialists, the #8 score would have been 504. We should also add that with the country quota, it is more likely that the score of the #8 will get higher. In other words, with some Teamwork among the female Speed specialists, two could make it to the final Top-8. Then in the final, the same procedure and the best could up with 1 * 7 * 7 = 49 which probably would mean a bronze. I do not encourage teamwork like suggested but it shows another weakness of the multiplication format and IFSV should follow it up.