Buster Martin has done his firt 9a+, First Ley in Margalef and he executes the six first quick draws and the hardest part in just 53 seconds.

Visa det här inlägget på Instagram

Ett inlägg delat av Buster Martin (@bustermartin) 18 Nov 2019 kl. 8:28 PST

The Toulouse Olympic qualification starts November 28th and here is the 8a speculation who will make it. Among the male, no Boulder specialist have been listed simply because of Team Japan, although no one can qualify, is sending four Boulder specialists. This means that it will be much harder to get a good ranking in Boulder compared to in Lead. At the same time, as the Japanese are also very good at Speed they will, in general, get a high ranking overall meaning that most probably being Top-10 will be good enough. This will open up for possibly two Speed specialists qualifying to Tokyo. The ones suffering the most that the Japanese are allowed to compete are the boulder specialists that are also good Speed climbers like Jan Hojer and Manuel Cornu. Furthermore, as Jernej Kruder and Aleksei Rubtsov do not yet know if they can make it, the odds are against them. 1. Adam Ondra - Lucka Rakovec 2. Bassa Mawem - YiLing Song 3. Alberto Gines Lopez - YueTong Sang 4. Stefano Ghisolfi - Jain Kim 5. Sasha Lehmann - Julia Chanourdie 6. Alfian Muhammed - Anouck Jaubert Among the female, only two from Japan will compete at the same time there might be five Speed specialists. This will open up for the ones being relatively weak in Speed. At the same time, it is expected that both Slovenia and France and possibly also the USA will fill their country quota. This means that it just might be good enough to be Top-12 to get the Olympic ticket. In theory, it just might be three Speed specialists going to Tokyo.

Max Bertone, who did his first 8c last months, has done three 8b+ during just three days in Ouaki; M&M's, Partagas and XXX. The 12-year-old is little brother to Oriane, the most successful youth competition climber in 2019.

Giani Clement, who had just done two 8B+' until 2018, reports on Insta that he has done the second repeat of Michael Piccolruaz' La Grosse Tarlouze in Magic Wood, which is his third 8c. Jonathan Heusser "It was probably my biggest fight I ever had to climb a boulder. It was a fight against the massive pump, due to the length of more than 40 moves, as well as a fight with the icy cold temps which were difficult to handle. The decisive factor for the successful ascent, apart from mental & physical aspects, was certainly the choice of the right tactics, especially because of the extremely cold rock, which tends to make my fingers so numb during climbing. A hot stone saved my life at the shaking point!" How can you explain your great progress in 2019? I think there are several factors. I've certainly become physically & mentally stronger, I've also trained in a structured way and prepared myself specifically for some boulders in cooperation with a coach (Patxi Usobiaga). Then I remained injury-free and put the focus on projecting & repeating hard boulders.

The Olympic qualification in Toulouse starts in ten days but still Jernej Kruder, Aleksei Rubtsov, Sandra Lettner and Iuliina Kaplina await confirmation if they are allowed to compete. Some four weeks ago they got an invitation to participate but later IFSC changed the qualification rules. Imagine how hard it is for them to actually train Speed etc in order to prepare as they do not know if they will go to Toulouse.

Rei kawamata, two time Youth World Championship and #5 in a Boulder WC in 2019, has done his third 8B+, Decided and Yasya 8B in Mizugaki.