The commentators in Moscow said that they did not think the route setters over cocked the female boulders they in a good way challenged the very best. I totally disagree. The purpose of the qualification and the semi final is not to create a nice challenge for the best climber. It is about getting the Top-20 and the Top-6 in a nice show for the spectators. Further more, these rounds should be fair for the athletes. Route setting is super hard and it is amazing how often they are spot on. However, there will always be situation when the boulders were too hard. The best way to make them fun to watch and fair for the athletes is to add one more zone.

It seems the route setters, based on the few number of tops in the semi, made some late changes, resulting in too easy boulders in the final. All the podium topped all four boulders and Janja Garnbret won by doing them all first go. Noteworthy is that Slovenia, with just 2 million inhabitants, was superior by getting two golds and another two in the finals. 1. Janja Garnbret 44* SLO Eddie Fowke 2. Shauna Coxsey 44 GBR 3. Fanny Gibert 44 FRA 4. Lucka Rakovec 34 SLO 5. Jessica Pilz 34 AUT 6. Futaba Ito 33 JPN Complete results * In order to make it more understandable 8a has started to take out the T and z and just present the score with points.

Patti Wohner, who did two 8A's being 41 years old, is back on track after a muscle injury and has done two 7C+, 3D and Slow Dance in Bishop. "I struggled with "stiff muscles" for about a year and a half, trying to figure out what was going on. I ended up with pretty bad scapular winging in January which prevented me from climbing at all. Finally I started seeing a shoulder specialist, Jessi Delong in Bishop and she fixed me right up. I'm so grateful to her and I'm excited about getting outside again now that my muscles work again! I was having issues for about a year and a half where my muscles would not loosen up. I climbed as best I could at a lower level during that time. Its been about a month now that I've been feeling better and steadily getting stronger." Three months ago Patti released her first adventure novel Desert Dirtbag, where we can follow a gym climber who dreams climbing hard Hueco Tanks.

In possibly, the hardest ever boulder semifinal, Futabo Ito qualified to the final by just getting three zones. Shauna Coxey and Janja Garnbret were the only ones topping out two boulders. Complete results Among the male, Adam Ondra started first and topped out all four quite easily. In the end, Rei Kawamata was runner up with 2T4z as was the score for the Top-7 so the number of attempts made the cut. Interesting was that we saw possibly 30 attempts where the climbers touched the top but failed. All in all, 17 made four zones and all 20 made three zones.

Jernej Kruder and Rei Sugimoto won their respective group in Moscow. In total, Japan got seven into the semi Top-20 and they participated with just eight guys as the Narasaki brothers skipped Moscow. Other than that, Russia and France got three into the semi. Once again Jakob Schubert, Gregor Vezonik and Sean McColl did not make it to the semi as in Meiringen. Interesting is also that Adam Ondra was #10 in his group very close to have missed the semi. Complete results

The Boulder World Cup in Moscow has just started and Janja Garnbret walked away with a clean score onsighing all five boulders. (Normally the word flash is used for doing a boulder first try in competitions but in reality it is an onsight as no beta was given to the athletes.) Fanny Gibert won the second group and Austria got five semi-finalist, Jain Kim failed to make the semi again as in Meiringen. Complete results

Christof Rauch, who has done more than 500 boulders 8A to 8C the last five years although working full time, has done Graceland 8B+ in Allgäu. This was his fourth 8B+ the last four weeks and in 2019 he has done 42 boulders 8A and harder, including two 8C's. "Finally! Thought I could do it quicker, took me 4 sessions to put it down but had some bad luck last session. Pretty hard shouldermove, my left shoulder (slightly injured since a few years) hurted after every session but I wanted to link those rad moves sooo bad!"

Isabelle Faus reports on Insta that Keenan Takahashi has done The Story of Two World’s 8C in Cresciano.

Visa det här inlägget på Instagram

The PRO teams competing in @arcorockstar 2019 have been chosen! Four teams from 4 countries will compete for two days in search of the perfect photo. ⠀ ⠀ Hurry up and register for the Open Category, get those shots made, and win great prizes! All participants will meet from the 10th to the 12th of May at Lake Garda, Trentino to celebrate the international climbing photo contest. ⠀ ⠀ The Vibram Sole Factor will be present during the event. Be sure not to miss it: arcorockstar.it ⠀ #verticallife #arcorockstar #climbing

Ett inlägg delat av Vertical-Life Climbing (@vertical.life.climbing) 10 Apr 2019 kl. 5:19 PDT