Jorge Diaz-Rullo, who this summer has done his first three 9b's, has done his seventh 9a+, Seta ibérica in Cuenca. "Brutal connection! I wanted to do it after a couple of tries quite close! Now for the ones that remain! The 19-year-old is the superior 8a ranking leader. (c) Javi Pec

Moritz Welt, who did his first 9a two years ago, has done his fourth, Styleboys in Frankenjura. "Surprise ascent - 3 more tries after Sever and Sick Boy - perfect endurance linkup. Two days later the 18-year-old did his sixth 8B+, Urlaub fürs Gehirn also in Frankenjura. "Second ascent. Fabi's Masterpiece!" In the Combined ranking game, the young German is #2. The picture by Lars Decker is from a project Moritz has been working on for three weeks. It is an old Frankenjura line so it should be rather hard which possibly has to wait until spring as he travels to Spain on Thursday.

Adam Ondra, who will compete in Kranj this weekend, has done his 12th 8C, Ghost Rider in Moravský kras. "2nd ascent after Martin Stranik. Amazing problem, lower start is waiting..."

Adam Ondra has made some comments in regardards to the forum thread, Qui 9a+ by Adam Ondra. As usual Ondra tries to give respect to the pioneers who first broke the 9a level although they were more modest in their grading. In retro persepctive it just might be that Qui from 1996 by Stefan Fürst was the second 9a+ in the world. "I did not ask Stefan whether he gave it 8c+ or 9a, but the whole confusion is also created not only by tougher standards (8c+ back then being todays 9a), but also due to unclear conversion between UIAA and French grades back then in 90's. Now it is set that 11-/11 is 8c+, 11 is 9a. I have never tried Akira, but out of he routes that I tried or did from 90's, I think that Hubble (1990), Action Directe (1991) and Om (1992 - 1 repetition) are more or less the same level, which means low or mid level 9a's. Weisse Rose (1994 - 1 repetition), Open Air (1996 - 1 repetition) and Qui (1996 - 1 repetition) are obviously step higher, and in todays standards might be at least low-level 9a+. Note - I have not upgraded Weisse Rose when I did it in 2009, but retrospectively thinking, it is worth consideration. This could make Weisse Rose the world's hardest route back then. Note2 - It Is unclear how much easier Qui was when Stefan did it compared to how it is now. My personal guess is that it has not changed that much. Note3 - Stefan's route X-Large in Massone has also seen only one repetition, even though he graded it only 8c in 1996. Being in the middle of the busiest crags in Italy, it is interesting... Quite an achievement back then without modern shoes that are good for heelhooking."

Jesús Muñoz (Chuchi), who this spring did his first 9a, has done his second 8C in Hoya Moros, Eterno Legado. The FA was done by Alberto Rocasolano as an 8B+/C but later a hold broke making it harder. It is located at 2 400m altitude one hour from Salamanca with a 90 min approach. In total there are some 850 boulders up there (c) Víctor Rodríguez "After some rainy weeks, the weather was better and I could go back to Hoya Moros. Although it was a little wet day, the cold temperature counteracted it. After some attempts falling into the last movements, in my last try, I was able to link the 20 movements to sent it. It has been a long process from July to complete all the lines and combinations of this rock. I am very happy to have finished this process before the snow cover everything. However, before this happens I hope to send more projects in this area. Let's keep going!"

Wojtek Pełka, who just turned 20, has done his first 9a, Black Cobra (2) in Herculane. Adam Ondra put it up last year saying that there is a possible extension and variations... "to be continued". "What an amazing wall! So glad to repeat this endurance monster with some spicy long pulls. I was in Baile Herculane for two weeks trying the route for 6 days since I've realized it's the only alternative in this quite virgin area. I wasn't sure if it was possible to send it at first sight, in spite of doing all the moves. But my girlfriend and friend persuaded me to give it a chance. As at got cooler - around 20 degrees I managed to send it.

1. Paul Jenft FRA 44 - Naile Meignan FRA 34 2. Hector Bazan Martin ESP 34 - Miriam Fogu ITA 24 3. Aberto Gines Lopez ESP 33 - Vanda Michalkova SVK 23 Complete results

France got three golds and another two medals at the European Youth Championship in Bouldering in Brixen. Runner up was Austria with two golds and one silver. Surprisingly Slovenia got empty-handed as also Germany. As a matter of a fact, Slovenia did just have three Top-8 results and Germany two. This can be compared with eleven Top-6 results for France. Overall the competition was a great success for the route setters with 17 out 18 almost perfect rounds. Oriane Bertone and Paul Jenft, both from France, were the only ones topping all their 16 boulders.

Closed projects have created a lot of controversy over the years. I have bolted some 500 routes but tend to stay in the middle out of the two extreme opinions. My idea has always been that anybody is allowed to climb my routes as long as my project name is kept. Once Yuji Hirayama showed up and wanted to climb a cool line my friend had bolted and was working on. We come up with the solution that Yuji could climb it as long as he symbolic grabbed the anchor while clipping it. Yuji thought that was great and actually found a better solution on his onsight and my friend did it soon after. In the topo of Göteborg, my name is all over the place but for some hard routes I did not do the first, two FA names are mentioned. This means both the name of the first ascent as well as the founder ascent are mentioned. I think this is a nice midways solution for the controversy of closed projects. We have to bear in mind that nobody can climb ownership of some piece of rock but on the other hand, it could be nice to show some respect to the guys investing money and time in order for the community to get some more climbing challenges. As long as we are talking routes of climbs not that hard, there should be no such thing as a closed project or a challenge for the first ascent. What is important is the founder ascent, i.e a new way of saying FA. I think we should respect red-tagging in the first hanger but this means that the Founder should actively work on it. However, anybody should be allowed to try it out. When it comes to boulders and trad routes, I think in general that they can not be closed if it does not relate to investing multiple of hours cleaning and building landing platforms etc.