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.

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

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. .

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