Escalade9 keeps track of all the 8c+/9a and harder ascents. In total there are 17 female that has done a 9a and harder and another five who has done an 8c+/9a. Era Vella and Esclatamasters are examples of routes given 8c+/9a. Here is a list of the ones having done at least two 9a's 9b: Angela Eiter (c) Red Bull Contenpool/E. Holzknecht 9a+: Margo Hayes (2), Anak Verhoeven, 9a: Angela Eiter (2), Anak Verhoeven (2*), Josune Bereziartu (2), Julia Chanourdie (2), Ashima Shiraishi (2) Here is a ranking based on the 8a points, excl. 8c+/9a 1. Angela Eiter - 4 000 2. Anak Verhoeven - 3 950 3. Margo Hayes - 2 700 4. Chanourdie, Bereziartu and Shiraishi - 2 600 5. Eleven female with one 9a - 1 300 Noteworthy is that Angela Eiter is a contender for being the best female Lead competition climber having won four World Championships and three times she won the Lead World Cup.

Over the years, I have checked and asked possibly around 100 athletes and at least 20 coaches to understand what is the best training practice. In general, there is actually no mainstream idea but instead many different approaches. This means that you should not try to copy the ideas from just one athlete or coach randomly but instead try as many regimes as possible before you will find what suites you best. However, what has struck me most is that the best male like Adam Ondra, Chris Sharma and Daniel Woods are that they did not followed any training regime being teenagers. They just followed their passion and climbed as much as possible living the moment instead of just focusing on short term progress. The other thing that have made extreme impression is watching and talking with the Japanese athletes over the years. They can not stop playing around having fun together. After the final in Munich 2017, when everyone had left for the party, they continued trying the final boulders in their sneakers for an hour until their hands were bleeding. Thirdly, Jernej Kruder won the Boudering World Cup in 2018 did contrary to most of the successful boulderers not focus on indoors. Instead of power training and jumping around on volumes indoors, he spent many hours sport climbing, DWS, bolting and even doing vertical multi-pitches, see picture. On the other hand, there are several athletes that have been successful following extreme training programs mainly training alone. In other words, the best training is individual and you better start trying them all. It seems it does not matter so much what you do as long as you are so motivated so you put in as many hours possible.

Climbing is getting out there more and more on the public scene. Now you can see The Dawn Wall on Netflix.

Lynn Hill was the best female climber in the world in 1990 when she won the World Cup and did the first female 8b+. Remarkable to say the least as she in May 1989 had fallen 22 meters into a tree in Buoux as she had forgotten to tie in properly! In 1993, she made the FA of The Nose and graded it 8a. The consensus grade is now 8b+! In 2008, she did Chblanke 8A (+) being 47 years old and now 11 years later she is still pushing hard and has done the Orb 8a in Boulder Canyon.

Seb Bouin, who previoudly has done 32 routes 9a to 9b, has done Chris Sharma's 50 meters test piece Pachamama 9a+ in Oliana. (c) Jon Cardwell "This line is for me one of the best in Oliana (or the best). Thank’s Chris Sharma for bolting this one. I tried it last year but weather was a disaster. It was wet every time. This year it took me two little travel (1.5 weeks both). Next plan, maybe other route in Oliana and Spain. But the main plan is to be ready for Move in Norway (Flatanger).

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1. Fanny Gibert - Jérémy Bonder 2. Naile Meignan (15) - Arthur Ternant 3. Hélène Janicot - Manu Cornu 4. Maëlys Agrapart - Sam Avezou (17) 5. Lucile Saurel - Mathieu Ternant 6. Manon Hily - Mickael Mawem Fanny, #3 in WC 2018, got her fourth French Bouldering title and Jérémy won his third. From the Tokyo perspective, both Sam and Mickael are among the fastest non-Speed specialists.

Climbing has published an article on Facebook that quickly has created a debate in regards Honnold's free solo - "Uncomfortable Truths, But Ignored Others" "The film ignores two important things:" 1. The film crew created some motivation for Honnold to go for it. 2. The film crew made it more simple for him to bail out. I certainly do not think these two important things were ignored in the film. On the contrary, they dealt with it perfectly. However, even if they had been ignored, I do not see a problem with this. The only thing that I think was ignored was how big risk of death did Honnold face? When we judge how irresponsible Honnold was towards his family and friends, it only comes down to the risk of death. Of course, the risk can not be measured in percentage but I do think Honnold's risk for falling to the ground up on El Cap was much lower than the risk of death, the guys pushing themselves towards the top of K2 face. If this is true, we should question every person trying to summit K2 instead of saying Honnold and his film crew was irresponsible. 8a has had a policy to not publish free solo ascents except exceptional ones which have reached mainstream. In the early days of 8a, before this policy, we several times did receive emails where climbers asked if they would get a headline on 8a if they did a certain route free solo.