Multi-pitches and Big walls are not the highest prio of 8a but with Babsi Zangerl pushing so hard it could be interesting to see if she actually could be Top-5 when it comes to measuring tick lists. So let us try it out by ranking it from the Top-10 ascents. We do not include sport climbing multi-pitch routes. Tommy Caldwell should be considered as #1 and here are some names that could challenge Zangerl Barbara in the Top-10; Iker Pou, Eneko Pou, Edu Marin, Nicolas Favresse, Jorg Verhoeven, David Lama, Adam Ondra, Alex Huber, Kevin Jorgeson, Jacopo Larcher... Please add your comments and suggest your Top-5.

As have been mentioned before, when it comes to gender equalness climbing is unique. There is no other physical sport where the females are as close to the males performance as in climbing. The best examples are Babsi Zangerl in Big Wall and Hazel Findlay in trad but also Ashima Shirashi in Boulder and Angela Eiter in Sport are relatively close to the male performance. When it comes to youngsters, the best ever boulder performances relative to their age, have been done by girls; Ashima Shiraishi and Oriane Bertone. Talking about one single achievement, Lynn Hill did the FA of The Nose in 1993. In total, it has only been repeated seven times in 26 years out of which two ascents by a female. If we measure who is the best rock climber overall, combining Big Wall, Sport, Trad and Bouldering, it just might be that Babsi Zangerl is Top-10 or so.

On Thursday, the Olympic male qualification starts in Toulouse with Speed at 11.00 followed 13.00 with Bouldering and finishes at 16.45 with Lead. There are 22 male participants, out of which 18 battles for six tickets to Tokyo. Japan comes with four male but they have already filled their country quota. In theory, it might be good enough to be #12 also France and Germany might fill their quota. The Top-8 go to the final meaning, it is the qualification day that counts and the final day is most probably just a formality training of the Olympic final format. As the result is based on multiplication, it is almost 100 % certain that qually winners in each disciplin will make it to the Olympics. In practice, also the runner ups are expected to get a ticket. Here is the 8a speculation for who will get a ticket to Tokyo. The reason why there are so many male Lead specialists is because most of the Japanese are boulder specialists and also rather good in Speed. In other words, if Japan gets the two first positions in Boulder and perform also in Speed, three Lead specialists and Adam Ondra are expected to get high up in the ranking. 1. Adam Ondra CZE - Lucka Rakovec SLO 2. Bassa Mawem FRA - YiLing Song CHN 3. Alberto Gines Lopez ESP - YueTong Sang CHN 4. Stefano Ghisolfi ITA - Jain Kim KOR 5. Sasha Lehmann SUI - Julia Chanourdie FRA 6. Alfian Muhammed INA - Anouck Jaubert FRA A very interesting side note is how Adam Ondra performance in Speed. His current PB is 7.87 at the same time as most are under 7 seconds. If Adam does not come close to seven seconds, it just might be strategically to skip serious Speed training. With the multiplication system, it does not matter so much if you are #15 or #20 in the qually or #7 or #8 in the final.

99boulders has via Willis Kuelthau published a comprehensive list of all the 8b+ trad routes in the world. Jacopo Larcher is listed with seven so possibly he is #1 in the world? Also considering his FA of Tribe which he said was his hardest but did not grade. Interestingly, his partner Babsi Zangerl has done three meaning she is tied as #7. In total, five 8c+ are listed including Beth Rodden's Meltdown from 2008 which could be considered the first if we exclude Dave MacLeod's Rhapsody from 2006. Downgrades have been suggested and it has also been said to be an eliminate. Furthermore, MacLeod climbed 25m of it on top rope as he previously once had down climbed from that point. He did not place any gear on the actual ascent.

Hazel Findlay reports on Insta that she has done Ron Kauk's Magic Line Yosemite. The first trad redpoint, placing all gear on lead, was done by his son Lonnie in 2018, upgrading it to 8c+. Hazel tried it briefly last year and this fall for a month sending it on her fourth try on her last day. The Brit has previously done up to 8b+ trad and also several hard Big Walls up to 8b. Jacopo Larcher and belaying was Babsi Zangerl. "It was stressful getting heartbreakingly close twice but in reality doing it on the last day of the trip meant that this route was the perfect challenge for me, testing me right to the end."

We all know the anti-climax problem when the gold and silver in a Speed final being decided by a false start or an early slip. Imagine instead having four climbers fighting for the medals in four narrow lanes running up on five-meter wide wall with identical campus board rungs. This would mean more excitement, more finalists, much easier to set up in gyms and more understandable for both climbers and non-climbers. The rungs could also come in two different sizes, so Speed could be interesting also in the local gyms as well as for the (female) youth in the comps. On the bigger rungs, a "no feet" discipline could be added in the World cups etc, although this would mean we have to make the wall a bit steeper. A third and fourth discipline could be standing or running high jump on the bigger rungs. In any case, any final will be finished with a measurable spectacular dyno. The two different rungs should be as identical to what most gyms have on their campus board. The rungs can also be shown whenever clubs and federations run competitions or shows so everyone can feel the size of it. Furthermore, it would be interesting for hang board producer to include the standard Speed climbing rungs. Imagine how much more interesting it would be to exactly know the sizes of the rungs also for the millions of non-climbers watching the Olympic. Today a Speed climbing wall is normally 7 meters wide. By using the standard 1.22 meters width in running, four lanes take just five meters. In gyms, you can either have two lanes with the smaller rungs and two lanes with the bigger one's side by side. Alternatively, the differently sized rungs can be put on the same lanes, also creating a third easier Speed lane combining the rungs.

The starting order in Speed is by random. The Top-8 go to the final where the fastest will race against #8. This means that the last guys out in the qualification could possibly choose to go slow if they already are among the Top-8 and think they have a good opponent. In other words, there might be some strategical slow races at the end of the Speed qualification based on the prior results. Let us say, as an example, For some reason one of the two male Speed specialists got ranked #1 and #3 before the very last race in the qualification. This means that being ranked #7 is much better than being ranked #6 as the latter will race against a guy with at least a PB of 5.67. So if the #7 guy will compete against any higher-ranked male or any of the slowest, it is strategical to go slow and remain #7.

Marwin Winkler, who is doing a PhD in performance analysis in competition climbing, has done Mangarbo 9a/+ in Villanueva del Rosario. "The first time I got into contact with it, was making a video of Seb Bouin doing the FA some years ago and Edu Marín repeating it shortly after. At this time I was so intimidated by tininess of the holds that I never really dared to try. During the last years, I always remembered a friend of mine saying that I might do it - something I didn't believe at this time. After doing Mandanga total, my first 9a last spring I convinced my self to give it a try... It's a huge lesson that I learned from it: Not to keeping myself within limits, daring to try something that first seems impossible. The goal of my PhD is the analysis of the performance structure of the single individual disciplines Speed, Bouldering and Lead as well as for the Olympic combined climbing format and to construct and validate profiles of requirements."