Anak Verhoeven report on Insta that she has done Joe Mama in Oliana. (c) Ezra Byrne In 2017, the Belgian was #3 in the World Cup and won the European Championship, has had got an elbow injury in September 2017 which has forced her to skip most of the comps in both 2018 and 2019. Her first 9a+, the FA of Sweet Neuf she did just before she got the injury. Please tell us about the process taking it down and what about your injury and the Olympics? I had never tried the route before this trip and it took me 10 redpoint attempts (so 10 tries after I had tried and memorized the moves). The key to climb it was finding the exact beta that suited me. I am not fully recovered unfortunately. The muscles in my arm are still more contracted on one side than on the other and that bothers me while climbing. The cause of that is still unclear. I have never tried to get an Olympic ticket actually, so I won’t try to get one via the European Championships either.

IFSC has not yet presented the starting list for the Olympic Qualifying event in Toulouse that will take place in just three weeks. We have previously reported that IFSC has deleted the criteria the max 2 country quota and that Japan has sued IFSC for saying their second-highest highest-ranked must go to Tokyo. IFSC has sent out invitation letters to the athletes to the Top-20 but with the deleted max country quota, some of them should not any longer be included in the Top-20. The max quota just might be that IOC has put pressure against IFSC that such rule is not applicable for Olympic qualifications. It is otherwise very hard to understand how come IFSC did first send out invitations and later sent out info in regards to changes in the rule. Furthermore, as IFSC has said that Japan has filled its quota, it is uncertain if team Japan will be allowed to send 0 or 8 to Toulouse. It should be underlined that this article is just based on speculations from athletes and coaches. If Japan will be allowed to send their full team, it just might be that the only solution at this stage would be to increase the number of invited athletes to Toulouse.

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Séb Bouin, who just did a Patanics suggesting a down grade to 9a+, has done No Pain no Gain in Rodellar thinking it is 9a. (c) Julia Cassou Once the French have recorded the last two ascents in his scorecard, he will be #1 in the ranking game. In total, he has now done some 40+ routes 9a and harder including two 9b+' he did this summer.

Doing solo and trad ascents are partly about how dangerous they are. What if you have a harness on and all quickdraws in place, can you still say you soloed the route just because you were not tied in. What about doing a scary trad route and having a friend ready to throw down a rope if you bailout? The question is where to draw the ethical line? I think it is not OK to use any such tactics without mentioning them in your report. What do you think? Once in a while, we get the info that top climbers use such ethics.

Keenan Takahashi has done his fourth 8C, Asagimadara in Mizugaki put up by Tokio Muroi. On his Insta he reports, "A dream line completed!!! Despite not being a climbing trip, my only goal was to try Tokio Muroi’s legendary highball.⁣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣⁣ Once I saw it, I vowed to do what was necessary to climb it at some point. Fortunately, that moment came quickly! ⁣⁣"

Moritz Welt, #3 in the Combined 8a ranking game, has done his fifth 9a, Victimes del Futur in Margalef. (c) Simon Weisser "Perfect. The amazingly logical line up the yellow streak. ~30 moves 8b+ route into very physical two move 7C+ boulder problem. Something around 10 tries after Passat (an 8c+ he did two weeks ago)."