Solveig Korherr, an active competition climber until 2017 who had a personal best of 8b+ just seven months ago, has done her first 8c+, Southern Smoke in Red River Gorge. The last month she has done 14 routes 8a and harder and she is #1 in the 8a ranking game. (c) Billy Simek How can you explain your great progress in 2019? I have climbed a lot more outdoors in the past two years, but I have still been maintaining a high level of training discipline. I have gotten a lot better at projecting, in terms of dogging routes but also tactically projecting. Building my pyramid of grades over the last couple of years has boosted my self-confidence. I find that this is especially helpful when I approach harder redpoint goals. I also feel especially well-prepared for this trip to North America because I had an intensive six-week training cycle.

Adam Ondra, preparing for the Toulouse Olympic qualification in just two weeks time, reports on Insta that he has had an amazing day doing three FAs; Nunavut 8C, Pučmeloun 8C and Intensitos 8B. "One of the best days bouldering for sure." (c) Jakub Konecny

The IFSC European events 2020 in Boulder and Lead, includes a record number of competitions. At the same time, they are spread out and only a few in central Europe so there will be a lot of traveling. Noteworthy is that there are not one in France and Italy but three events in Austria and Russia including both the Euro and the World Youth Championship. Boulder 20/03 Moscow - Russia: Euro Championship 17/04 Klagenfurt - Austria 25/04 Trondheim - Norway: Youth 09/05 Soure - Portugal: Youth 16/05 Graz - Austria: Youth 30/05 Sofia - Bulgaria: Youth 05/06 Kiev - Ukraine Zakopane - Poland - Date to be confirmed Lead 12/06 Imst - Austria: Youth 20/06 Ostermundigen - Switzerland: Youth 03/07 Puurs - Belgium: Youth 14/08 Belgrad - Serbia 23/08 Voronezh - Russia: World Youth Championship 19/09 Augsburgh - Germany 22/10 Perm - Russia: European Youth Championship

Akira Waku has done his second 8C, Hydrangea, video, which is a link-up of Babel 8B+ and Hydra 8B. It took the 48-year-old 35 days to link them together after having spent 35 days to do them separately. His body fat was less than 5 % being 172 cm and 53 kilos. Akira started climbing 13 years ago being 35 years. There was no climbing gym in the neighborhood so he decided to build one. His physical background was close to nothing. "The climbing gym closed in March this year. I am a company employee and have not been to the climbing gym. I train on a personal wall at home. After that, it is training to go to the climbing area as much as possible and climb a lot. Climbing training is mainly muscle training and campus board training. I devise my own training and practice it. I do not have coaches, trainers, etc and I do not even go there. Training is 2-3 hours at a time, 2-3 days a week + 1-2 days in the boulder area. The contents of physical training are mainly muscle training and trunk training with free weights. The next goal is not yet clear, but I would like to challenge Japan's Horizon V15 and the Australian Whale of Life V15. .

IFSC has published the start list to Toulouse including 20 males and females. Further down, they have listed Jernej Kruder, Aleksei Rubtsov, Sandra Lettner and Iuliia Kaplina as "Subject to IOC confirmation". As have been mentioned before, the reason for this is that the IFSC selection rules was not according to IOC rules, it seems. However, as Kai Harada and Miho Nonaka were not included, the appeal from the Japanese federation against IFSC must have been dismissed. Anyhow, even though Japan has filled their max 2 country quota, four males and two females will be allowed to participate in Toulouse. It is the Top-6 who will get a ticket to Tokyo, however, the result of the Japanse will be excluded. The same goes also for any other country that fills the max quota.

Chaehyeon Seo, the 16 year old who won the Lead World Cup, got both titles in the Asian Championship in Bogor. She will not compete in Toulouse as she did not do any Boulder WC's this year. Her only possibility to qualify to Tokyo will be the Asian Combined Championship next spring. In the Speed event in Bogor she did 10.54. In the Combined Championship, Seo was only #4 as she was only #4 in the Boulder final. Overall winner was Speed specialist Iqamah Nurul from Indonesia. Among the male, Kokoro Fujii won in Lead but in his best discipline, he was beaten by Katsura Konishi, who never has done a World Cup. Fujii won also the Combined event with 6,61 as his fastest time in Speed. Interesting is also that Veddriq Leonardo from Inonesia won the Speed event at 5,406 beating the world record with 0,07 but as this has not been reported by IFSC, probably the wall was not certified. Noteworthy is also that Rishat Khaibullin, #3 in the Combined WCH, was just #7.

Alex Khazanov, who won one Boulder World Cup last year, has done Inception 8c+ and his second 9a, Climb Free in Nezer Cave. Both routes were bolted by Ofer Blutrich and opened by Adam Ondra and Climb Free as the first 9a in Israel. "Since more than one year I had the focus to try to make it to the Olympic games. A task that proved to be harder than seemed haha Focusing on the competitions, and specifically, the fact that I had to train all three disciplines, made climbing outside not an option. I know some people can do both, but unfortunately for me, I am not one of them. Coming back from Japan, I realized that something had to change. I forgot why I love climbing so much. I was training because I had to, not because I wanted to. So, I went outside, to remember why I climb. I knew that Adam has put up some hard routes in Nezer cave, so I went to check them out. I had no idea what to expect both from my fitness level on rocks, but also from the route itself. A few people tried to climb free, but no one could figure out the moves of the crux, so this route became a sort of a mystery. With a big fight and a lot of good vibes and fun, I ended up doing it on my first try of the second day. At the moment I feel in the best shape of my life (even though the comps may not reflect it) and I am excited to see what can I do. In December I will head to Spain to see what I am capable of, and perhaps after that, I will go to Ticino for some bouldering. Wow, just talking about it makes me psyched. I missed rock climbing!

Paul Robinson has published a video of him doing The Insurgency 8B+ in Joe's Valley. Later he was told that the boulder starts one move lower meaning that his 8B+ ascent is not valid and we asked him for a comment. "I was going to the insurgency which is just a random start on the wall. I asked some of the local climbers who told me they thought it started where I did. But I guess it starts lower one move. No matter where you begin it is a stand start." Personally, I think a boulder should start from the holds you reach. Sure there are many exceptions when it comes to hardcore boulders and especially sit starts. Furthermore, in rare cases, there are crunched starts from defined holds by the FA. The reason for defining starts is normally that the FA wants to maximize or adjust the difficulty from his capacity. Sometimes this creates confusion and even controversies like in this case. Personally, talking in general terms, it seems a bit contrived to add one move for a natural standing start but sure there are of course good reason also for this in unique cases. It is important to say that any person is allowed to start anywhere but on the other hand, possibly a new name and grade should be given once not doing the same challenge the FA set up. So possible Robinson did just Insurgency 8B in this case?