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.

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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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! ⁣⁣"

Nomura Shinichiro has done two 8B+' in one day, Ukiyo and Utsushiyo in Ena. The former competition climber has previously done four 8C's and amazingly he did them within having bouldered outdoors one year. "Half a month ago I injured my pinkie. Since then I have changed how to use fingers and this has given me various climbing moves. My traditional style is 4 finger crimp but due to the injury I trained to be able to crimp powerfully with 3 fingers. My next target is Mandragora ~after break~ (project). I have already tried for more than 20 days. In my opinion Mandragora will be over V16 (8C+).

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)."

Said Belhaj, who previously has done ten 9a's and Papichula 9a+, has done Trip Tik Tonik in Gorges du Loup. (c) Sarah Vicente "In May I was climbing in Morocco with some locals from around Nice. As I was going to Nice afterward they recommended a route in Gorges du Loup called Trip Tik Tonik (TTT). It used to have some manufactured edges that had broken off so now it was harder and all natural. During the heatwave in June, I sorted out the moves and came back late September to go for the send. I fell many times in the bouldery crux at the start. When finally getting to the second part, an amazing headwall on tufas, I managed to fight to the top. I was very lucky to do it last Friday because all the rain had already made most routes impossible. TTT was not so bad but I needed to dry a hold before each try. But after all the rain the last few days I'm quite sure also TTT might be done for this season (?). Next week I'm finishing my season with a trip to the Balkans: Bosnia, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Romania. Mainly climbing but also culture, music, photograpy etc."