Davide Picco has done his fourth 9a, Biologico in Arco. Interesting is that the Italian started climbing at 19 and then in just three years he reached 8b and after six years he did his first 9a. "As for the fast progress I've been climbing for 8 years now, during the first period I used to train twice a week, but then the number increased to 6/7 because I really much liked the sport, sort of addictive. I mainly train indoors on intense endurance circuits of 25 movements or so, but I also like pure power sessions on training boards or on pan gullich."

Jorge Diaz-Rullo has done his fourth 9a+, Biographie in Céüse. Including also one 9b and one 8C boulder etc, the 19 year old is the superior Combined ranking game leader. "For me is a dream the route. Amazing place, experience, process and all the people that support me. At finish, I was working 8 days and I used the other betas for the boulders. THANK YOU! MERCI!"

The Speed Highlights video from Chamonix starts with the small final where both the female fall. According to the rule, then the winner should be the one with the best qualification time = Aries Susanti. Instead it was decided that they should have a re-run and then Aleksandra Kalucka got the bronze. "3) where both competitors record the same time or neither competitor records a valid time (other than where a False Start has occurred): a) the competitor with the highest (best) qualification ranking; or b) if both competitors have the same qualification ranking, the relevant race shall be re-run;"

This still shows that Molly has not control of hold 42 before she tried to move towards hold 43 and got the 42+. In other words, she is holding 41.5 and could just have gotten 41.5+ trying to move from that hold. Further more, in order to get a + you need to, "effect a progressive movement of their centre of mass or hips; and". Unfortunately, it is impossible to understand if Molly did a progressive movement or not from the video but several coaches as well as athletes on site, say they did not think so. As a matter of a fact, as Janja matched on hold 42 in a controlled way her centre of mass was much closer to hold 43 than Molly's.

Isabelle Faus has done her 37th 8A+, Small Box in Coal Creek. "It’s a fun climb with a couple hard moves off a bad crimp and a tricky toe hook. Been having a fun summer climbing on this boulder and in the park. I’m psyched to go Africa in a couple weeks, hopefully I can do a few more things in the mountains before we go." The picture is from Spread eagle in RMNP, her 8A #55. The last 12 months she has also done one 8B+ and eight 8B's and she is #1 in the 8a ranking game.

Janja Garnbret, who never has missed a Lead final, was cruising as normal but suddenly she just lost control and fell ending #9. Among the male, Adam Ondra did get the highest but also here we saw several big names dropping out like; Stefano Ghisolfi, Romain Desgranges, Sascha Lehmann and Domen Skofic. Complete results The female finals start 20.50 followed by the male 21.50.

Janja Garnbret was given 42 and was ranked #9, below Molly Thompson-Smith who got 42+. Molly reached hold 42 but found out it was impossible to clip and the reversed to 41 but as she could not clip she moved to 42 again where she tried to go upwards. The rule is very clear, saying you can only be rewarded a hold from where you can clip. This means Molly could have been given 41 and ended #11. In theory, one could argument that it could be possible to clip from hold 42. In any case, it would be totally impossible to clip from hold 43 meaning she could not be given 42+. Video of Molly's last moves. It has been confirmed that the Slovenians made an appeal but obviously the judges said their interpreting of the new 2019 rule is that it is OK to get 42+ even if 42 is as far your are allowed to clip. It should also be mentioned that the route setters did say it was possible from hold 42. "(a) where a Safety Hold has been marked (the “Blue Cross”), scoring is “stopped” at the marked hold until the relevant protection point has been clipped. (b) in all other circumstances, scoring stops when a climber has let go with both hands of the last hold from which it was possible to clip the last unclipped Protection Point." In practice this means that if Molly had gotten 43 she could actually have started moving with the left hand and gotten 43+ as long as the other hand remains at hold 42. It should be mentioned that before the article was published two experienced coaches as well as one judge said that they had not interpreted the new rule as it was used. Once all athletes understand this, there just might be safety problems as you can push much further without clipping than how it was in 2018.

Five female did fall on the same move and and in fact, the Top-3 had also the same score in the semi, so their internal ranking was based on the qualification results. In the end, 15 year old Chaehyon who was #2 last weekend, won as she had the best qualification result topping both routes. It should be mentioned that Jessica Pilz first got a better final scoring but later she was not recorded to have control of the crux hold, so was #3. Runner-up was YueTong Zhang (16) who was #9 in Villars. Complete results (c) Eddie Fowke