Alexey Rubtsov, Boulder World Champion from 2009 who tore his tendon on his long biceps head winning in Ljublijana 26/5, is back on track with two 8c+' in Céüse; Mister Hyde and Baa, baa black sheep. "It's been 12 weeks since surgery, my shoulder feels good and does not hurt anymore:) I felt comfortable climbing. This summer I spent recovering and climbing rocks. Slowly returning the level. Now I have returned home from the rocks and am ready to start training. But my shape is far from ideal. I haven’t done any bouldering in the gym yet, so I'm going to try it :). I will return to the competition in September and start with the European Championship in bouldering on September 6-7. I climbed the speed for the last time in May, and I will return to it in September. But to be honest, after the injury, partly my thoughts were: “everything is not so bad, at least I do not need to do speed now :)”." Noteworthy is that he did 7.27 already in Moscow which was one of the fastest time of the Bouderer specialists. This would mean that he should be able to do at least 6.5 in Toulouse but for that he probably would need to get twice Top-26 in Lead.

Giuliano Cameroni has done the FA of Raised by Wolfes 8B in Rocklands and comments. "One of the best boulders on earth. On Insta, he continues, "Opened this new boulder with @dawoods89 up at top shelf! One of the best climbing spots and one of the coolest blocs ever. Let us also add, one of the coolest bouldering pics. (c) Chad Greedy

Japan got six out of the nine medals in the oldest male and the youngest boys and girls finals. In the youngest boys, they were most superior being 1 - 3 in both the semi and the final. Shuta Tanaka, in the junior, was the most superior out of all winner as he he was the only one topping both qualies as well as winning both the semi and the final. The worst result for any of the nine participating Japanese were #5. It should be mentioned that in the oldest male category, they filed three appeals out of which one was accepted. Yesterday, 8a published and article saying appeals should be forbidden and replaced with "VAR". Oriane Bertone, #3 in the 8a boulder ranking game, from France won the youngest girl category and she was also won the semi by topping it. 00: Shuta Tanaka JPN (c) Eddie Fowke 04: Junta Sekiguchi JPN - Oriane Bertone FRA Complete results

00: Laura Rogora ITA (c) Marco Iacono 02: Nika Potapova UKR - Hidemasa Nishida JPN Complete results Interesting is that Slovenia did not have one finalist on the second day of the Lead final and that Austria did just get one #7 and one #8 position. Noteworthy is that Brooke Raboutou, who just qualified to the Olympics, was third among the juniors.

In football and actually in most sports, it is not possible to make an appeal against the referee's decision. For some reason, it is the opposite in climbing which sometimes make us wait for an hour or so until we have the final result. Sure the judges can make wrong calls but that is how it is. In football, in order to solve this, they have introduced VAR for critical goal situations in the most important games. As it stands, the team coaches can make appeals and then the result could reflect also how good the coaches are to make it in writing. Would it not be great to skip this appeal procedure and also introduce VAR in the Olympics? The VAR guys would be looking at the live-streaming and other cameras and they could whisper to the referee that he/she should have a look at certain incidents. In the same way, the referee could ask the VAR guys to check close calls. Further more, with a head referee there could me some space for not following the rules strictly black or white. In situations like Adam Ondra's questionable stepping on a bolt, the referee could say that it was in the grey zone and that Ondra did not benefit from it.

Hannah Donnelly has done her first 8A+, Green Mamba in Rocklands after 12 days projecting. She comments on Insta, "I have learned so much both mentally and physically about myself and what I am capable of in my climbing. I couldn’t be more thankful for the process. Thanks to @jwebxl for being there through the emotional waves. I couldn’t have pushed through without the endless hugs and support. (c) Jimmy Webb

1. Janja Garnbret: Winning three titles just confirms that she is the best ever competition climber in the history. Amazing performance by here. 2. Japanese domination: 50 % of the finalist in the Combined final. Amazingly impressive and there must be few individual sports where we see one country being so much ahead. 3. Japanese Speed progress: Tomoa Narasaki did clock 6.15 which would have taken him to the final in most prior Speed World Cups. Among the best Boulder/Lead climbers the male Japanese totally dominate. 4. Rishat Khaibullin: Last year he was #23 in the Combined doing 6.72 in Speed. He just trains it once a week so he does not match the criteria being a proper "Speed-specialist". In his three Speed WCs in 2019 he has improved from 6.88 - 6.47 - 6.15 and then he did 6.05 in Hachioji Speed followed by 5.83 beating the world champion Ludovico Fossali in the Combined. As a matter of a fact, this was good news for IFSC being a way better overall climber. In his last Lead run, he wisely skipped two clips and continued winning the bronze. 5. Drama especially with Time: As time decides equal hold score in Lead, we see faster climbers and more drama. In the first 6 - 7 seconds Speed run, it is decided whether you will get 1 - 4 or 5 - 8. With the multiplication format this have a massive impact. At the same time, the overall winner is, at least in theory, an open affair until the leader is out in Lead.

Maggie Odette has done her first 8c (b+), T-Rex in Maple Canyon. "Call it soft, I don’t care. It’s not like I’m crushing anyone with my scorecard these days, anyway. I can’t give this the same grade as Eulogy or Pipedream. More hard moves with fewer, crappier rests, and about a thousand times more pumpy. Fourth time repeating Millenium on the way to the T-Rex chains."

The Youth World Champion started today in Arco with the Lead flash qualification. In the oldest boy category, Shuta Tanaka who was #3 in the last Lead WC, was #1 and all the three Japaneses were Top-8. Also in the youngest boy category there is a Japanese on top, Satone Yoshida, the only one topping both routes. In the youngest girl category, Ryu Nakagawa has also topped both qualification routes. In both these categories are all the three from Japan Top-4. Complete results It should also be mentioned that their best five juniors do not participate as they competed with good results in the senior world championship last week. Ai Mori (15) - #3 in the Lead WCH Futaba Ito (17) - #7 in the Combined WCH Nanako Kura (19) - #6 in the Bouldering WCH Nishida Hidemasa (16) - #1 in the Lead WC in Briancon Keita Dohi (18) - Youth Olympic winner last year

peter dawson has done his second 9a, Hubble at Raven Tor after some 15 sessions. It was set up by Ben Moon in in 1990 and until recently considered the first 8c+ in the world. Probably do to adaptation to the current grade inflation, it has been upgraded to 9a. "I thought it was harder than Rainshadow so yeah 9a." Here is the video of the 12 meters long route. (c) Jonathan Bean "I first tried Hubble last November because I wanted to see what it was all about, it’s historic and famous for having a very hard crux. The route is extremely short and after 10 moves you are into 7c climbing to the chains. I started making significant links in spring and by summer I was reaching the final moves. The sequence came together two weeks ago and it was my second 9a. Climbing it was one of my best experiences as I absolutely nailed the sequence and to make such a hard sequence feel quite solid was incredible! The key was gaining the finger strength which I did by trying in the route lots. Next I would like to try Mutation which is another classic 9a at Raven tor."