Sebastien BOUIN has done the FA of La Rage d'Adam 9b/+ in Verdon. Once it has been recorded, the French will be #2 in he 8a ranking game. (c) Julia Cassou "This route was bolted few years ago. I visited it for the first time 4 years ago. Since that, I was trying it a little bit each year, but not so seriously. This year, it was a big objective to me. This route is really impressive by the beauty and the purity of the moves. The difficulty is not so long : there is a first short 8c (5.14b) of 6 quickdraws to reach the boulder crux problem. This boulder is HARD. It's around 10 amazing moves on little pinches and underclings in a super overhang part. Then you have 25 meters of "easy" climbing (around 8b). I am quite uncertain about the grade, this route is not so much my style, and I have not so much experience in this grade. It could be hard 9b or 9b/+. I will propose 9b/+, waiting repetitions to confirm or adjust." As a matter of a fact, Seb has published a quote from Adam Ondra on his Insta, "My guess is that it could be more of 9b/b+, if not even harder, based on my one and only experience of the route - which felt HARD!"

The 2019 European Championship took place in Zakopane in Poland. 35 female and 56 male participated and actually almost none of the best European boulderers did participate. The route setters were spot on in regards the difficulty on all rounds but the male final, where actually the silver was decided on count back from the semi. 1. Mickael Mawem FRA 24 - Urska Repusic SLO 34/4 2. Sergei Skorodumow RUS 13 - Vita Lukan SLO 34/6 3. Vadim Timonov RUS 13 - Irina Kuzmenko RUS 34/8 Complete results

Loic Zehani, who previously has done 13 routes 9a and harder, has done the FA of Le poisson pilote 9a+ in Orgon. video "This is my hardest route (harder than "Sachidananda"), which I equipped this spring. It's a succession of bouldery movements. There are 24 finger movements in the big overhang. I put fifteen sessions and I propose 9a+ for this route."

Jesús Muñoz (Chuchi), who previously has done two 8B+ FAs in Hoya moros, has done La Legión. (c) Victor Rodriguez "2 years ago a hold broke in one of the crux and I thought it would be very difficult to climb it. At that time it had only one ascent by @betoboulder, who had proposed 8B+. This year I tried again and I could do this move isolated which motivated me to keep trying. Yesterday afternoon I could send it earlier than I thought. Now I will try the Eternal Legacy, an alternative sit start to the same boulder that changes 3 movements of the start for another 6 different ones. Let's go!"

The European Championship started today in Zakopone but almost none of the very best will participate. Complete results

Alex Megos won the Combined qualification after actually having being on top in both Lead and Boulder. Unfortunately he got an rupture on his pinkie in the final but nevertheless he got his Olympic ticket. Quite extra ordinary results as he has just been competing for two years after having taken a five year break after a successful junior competition career. As a matter of a fact, all his stats also including being the first to onsight a 9a are indeed extra ordinary. 2017: 2 + 2 comps in Boulder and Lead; 7 - 2 - 8 - 2 2018: Winning a Lead World Cup and #3 in Innsbruck WCH As he has no yet focused so much on Speed and set a couple personal best in Hachioji (7.57), it is likely he will soon go below seven seconds and in a years time below 6.5 seconds. 8a is currently having the 26 year old German as runner up after Tomoa Narasaki to win gold in Tokyo. Vladek Zumr How did you prepare yourself for Hachioji? I think the best preparation I did was to compete in the world cups this year. I still don't have very much comp experience so doing the whole bouldering season plus the three lead world cups before world championships was a good preparation for me. Of course additionally to that I mostly trained in the gym, I did a lot more comp style bouldering and I tried to climb on the speed wall whenever I had the chance to. Together with my two coaches Patrick and Dicki we analyzed my biggest weaknesses in the comps and worked on those. How was it to take part in so many comps over such a long time? Doing the whole bouldering season this year was a new experience for me. I realized that different countries and different climate conditions do affect the performance on plastic a lot more than expected. In general it was cool participating in a lot more comps this year as it gave me the opportunity to get more into competing and gain some experience. I could figure out lots of things which might help me in competitions to come. How was it to compete in Hachioji over so many days? As I'm used to climbing and training a lot of days in a row it was physically not too tiring to compete multiple days in a row. I as well don't tend to have problems with super thin skin so bleeding tips were not an issue for me. Mentally on the other hand it is tough to be competing for such a long time and my the end of the comp I felt exhausted and tired although I didn't have the impression that I climbed a lot. What happened suddenly winning that boulder Combined qualification? To be very honest I don't really know what happened there. After the bouldering world cups I knew I was capable of doing well in bouldering comps but up to that point I felt like I was never really able to reach my potential in bouldering. At the combined qualification I finally was able to perform well. What does it mean to have qualified to the Olympics also from a training and competing perspective? Of course being qualified for the Olympics was a huge relief for me and something I didn't really expect to happen already at the world championships. Being qualified as well means that I'll keep my focus on comps for another year to prepare for the Olympics. How many speed sessions did you do before Hachioji? I didn't count my speed sessions before Hachioji but I did compete in 4 speed world cups this year and between the world cup in Briançon and the world championships in Hachioji I did 5 speed sessions. What is it you like the most being part of the competition circuit? I like most that I get to meet so many cool people at the comps and spend time with them. It's not easy to meet when you live all across the globe so the comps are the opportunity!

Congratulations, Sunniva Eik Haave and Louis Parkinson, for taking the title of the Vertical-Life Underdogs! The Vertical-Life community was given the great chance to select two Underdogs to compete among the best climbers on the planet at Adidas Rockstars 2019. Sunniva, top of the Oslo Klatresenter gym ranking, and Louis, top of the HarroWall Climbing Centre gym ranking, will be present at Stuttgart’s Porsche-Arena on the 13th and 14th of September. They'll enjoy the same privileges onsite as the invited pros. The top 10 crowd favorites will be rewarded with an adidas / Five Ten Underdog Package. The event will take place on the 13th and 14th of September and will be live-streamed on the Vertical-Life channels. Stay tuned! Learn more about their journey and the event

Giuliano Cameroni has done possibly the first 8B flash FA ever with House of the rising sun in Topside. The only beta he had gotten was looking at Daniel Woods trying the top out on a toprope but in the end he did a different beta. (c) Chad Greedy "A perfect afternoon we walked up to this beautiful project above Art form. The crux is a big lock off from a crimp to a slopey jug. From the beginning I realized it suited me well, so I decided to give it a good first go and everything just worked out!" One week later the Swiss also flashed his second 8A+, Microline in Rocklands and he is #2 in the ranking game.

The European Championship will take place in Zakopane in Poland the next weekend. Interestingly, many of the best are not in the starting list; Janja Garnbret, Shauna Coxey, Petra Klingler, Katja Kadic and Ievgeenia Kazbekova were all Top-10 in the WC 2019 will be missing. As a matter of a fact only two out of the Top-19 in Hachioji will participate. Adam Ondra, Jakob Schubert, Jernej Kruder, Jan Hojer, Anze Peharc and Manuel Cornu were all Top-13 in the WC 2019 but will not compete. None of the Top-17 in Hachioji will compete in Zakopane.

karoline sinnhuber has made a quick ascent of Ragman in Silvretta suggesting a personal down grade to 8A. The Austrian who has done 96 boulders 8A to 8B are #4 in the 8a ranking game. (c) Manuel Schof