Cameron Hörst, son to one of the leading climbing authors/trainer Eric, has done his first 9a, Moonshine at Wild Iris after some ten days of projecting. "It's a Frankenjura-style route--steep, powerful on small pockets", says his father who also took the picture. Video Interestingly, Cameron has lately only been climbing seven months a year as he also is a successful high school football player. The approach has been multi-sport and this is also a message Eric tries to spread as a trainer. From his Insta, we can see that Cameron also prepared himself by working on a replica.

The biggest sensation in the World Championship in Hachioji was that Rishat Khaibullin got the bronze in Combined. Last year he was #23 in Combined after being #22 in Speed, #53 in Lead and #116 in Bouldering. In 2013, he was #8 in the Lead respectively #16 in Speed in the Youth WCH. 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 in Combined. This is just sensational and understanding he just trains Speed like once a week as his nearest Speed wall is like 200 km away, we can rest assure he is far from his full potential. "My father was mountaineer in USSR, and when I was 6 years old he brought me to sport climbing. I am not a speed climber. But in Kazakhstan we climb all disciplines, so every comp I competed in all disciplines. Then I started training speed record wall. Actually in 2014 I have been training speed a lot, but now just once a week, other days boulder and lead." The Kazakhstan lives in Czech Republic and Martin Stranik confirms his bad Speed training conditions. "He is already three years in CZ. One year in Brno and three years in Prague. It is very interesting that he is such a good speed climber because it not so easy to train speed in CZ. We still don not have standard speed route, just two none standardized in Brno 200 km from Praguse. Rishat is a really good guy, a bit shy and very friendly, I really like him. Good point is also that he is really strong in small edges, what could bring him good result in boulder and lead." (c) Vladek Zumr Emontana.cz has published an interview and strangely enough he founds Speed awfully boring: "I don't like speed at all. I enjoy much more difficulty and boulder, but speed got me on the podium because I finished seventh. But the discipline is awfully boring, you're ruining your fingers, nails, running the same way over and over again, but it gives you a sense of speed."

00: Sohta AmaGasa JPN 04: Nichol Tomas THA - Oriane Bertone FRA Complete results (c) Eddie Fowke Oriane Bertone from France took her second gold in the Youth World Champion. As she has been superior in the Euro Youth Lead Cup as well as being #3 in the 8a boulder ranking, her both golds did not come as a surprise. It should also be mentioned that the boulder setters have almost been spot during the first days.

Eddie Fowke has gotten a nice picture of Oriane Bertone, the queen of the Arco Youth World Champion in Arco. In total, the 14 year old has done 44 boulders 8A to 8B+, put of which the first when she was just nine years old. She lives in Reunion island and here is a video including a mini-interview with her 18 months ago when she did her 8B+.

James Webb has had a productive week in Rocklands doing three 8B+' as well as Spray of light 8C, which also Giuliano Cameroni did. James is #1 in the ranking game at a new all time high 8a score at 12 180 points. Giuliano is #2 at 12 020 points. In total James has now recorded 1 536 boulders out of which 10, 8C and harder just the last year. On the picture by Keenan Takahashi he does Parzival

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.

hugo parmentier, who this summer has done both his first 9a as well as his first 9a+, has done Trip Tik Tonic 9a in Gorges du Loup. (c) Olivier Moise "It took me 8 days and 17 try. This is my pure anti style. I am really happy to have done a hard route in that style. Same day I try than did 8c 3rd go, 8b+ (tried once before) and 8a+ flash. That was a surreal day after days of struggling in one single route. Now I go back to Paris for school and I will train and climb in Font till January." How can you explain your recent progress? I think it is a result of a year of serious and hard training. But I think it's also a mindset. I really want to progress in climbing and that my main goal in parallel of my studies. I struggled with finger injuries the past years. Now I am starting to know myself better and to be careful.