Isabelle Faus has done her 35th 8A+, No half way Crooks 8A+ in Clear Creek Canyon. Previously she has also done 17 8B's and two 8B+' "It took me probably five sessions. I felt really close from the beginning, but there was one move that I couldn't do correctly on the try. Once I did it right I did it. I guess next is Memory is parallax (8B+), feeling good about it, but I also wanna check out Everything gneiss (8B+) and try Dark waters (8B), which are both in the same canyon as no half way crooks :))"

Danyil Boldyrev, former Speed world record holder at 5.61 and once WCH, is going for the Olympics and 5.3 seconds. He is also a Speed coach for many countries like Germany, Slovenia, USA, China and Austria etc. Last week he had some sessions with Jan Hojer and Yannik Flohe who he thinks are very talented and could go down to 6.65 this year. He agrees that you can check your Speed potential by focusing and measuring the time of the first 4-5 moves and standing long jump. The Ukrainian can jump 3.30 cm. "But I prefer using 20 exercises and after I could decide the potential. For me time is less important but instead the quality of movements on the speed wall and how athletes will do my special exercises. Without good coordination it will be very hard to make athletes, speed athletes. Speed climbing it's also a hard mental game. You must always analyze and visualize how you want to climb. Never forget about coordination, flexibility and fast training. Fluency and power on the speed wall it's the best way for great speed and time and stability of course." We will follow up with Boldyrev's personal thoughts and plans for making it to the Olympics.

Moritz Welt has had two great weeks doing three 8B's and Crashpad Dummy 8B+ in Frankenjura. Amazingly he just needed one session for each boulder. During the last year the 17 year old has done 67 boulders and 8A and harder and 73 routes 8a+ and harder and he is #4 in the Combined ranking. "I think my goal was trying some lines I've never tried before cause I became a little frustrated on my other projects. So expectations were quite low and I was able to be as relaxed as possible while bouldering. All ascents were super rewarding, but most of all "Airbus" because it's so rarely repeated and I love reactivating old and forgotten lines!"

Heiko Queitsch, #1 highest ranked in the 8a Gallery with also eight pics Top-20, enjoys bouldering during the winter. In the first pic by Tobias Plail he does Lego Technik direkt 8A in -14 without hand warmers or any special trick when he is out there. "Little Warming up.. .jumping, running, and easy moves. In the second pic by Frank Kretschmann he is doing the FA of Claude Monet 8A+. His coldest ascent was done in -25 degrees. "Basically I enjoy the peaceful atmosphere in the snow-covered forest. The conditions are often better in winter, since the rock is drier then, and the skin harder. Those crisp conditions allow me to climb moves that I can’t even dream of doing in summer or in warmer conditions. Before I approach my current project, I warm up at my indoor wall at home. It takes truly warm boots, a proper duvet jacket and lots of hot tea to keep the body warm in the freezing cold. Best, however, is a bunch of good friends crazy and motivated enough to go out into the cold, too. A great advantage is that it takes a lot to make me feel cold, at least minus 20°. I have, however, become “softer” than I used to be."

La Sportiva celebrates its 90th anniversary with a reboot of its climbing line: there are 5 classic models involved in the modernization operation with more modern designs and aesthetic solutions in line with the times. Make way then for the new versions of Miura, Futura, Cobra, Katana and Solution!

Moritz Perwitzschky, #5 in the Combined ranking, has done Crowbar 8B+ in Frankenjura in winter conditions. "10 moves of steep roof climbing, five tension moves (7B) lead to the crux move, far span from a quite good hold to a slopy pocket, after that still tension climbing with a toehook for 4 more moves, I fell four times on the last hard move cause of loosing the tension. For me personally it gets hard to get and stay warm if it's colder than - 5°. If it's below 0° for me warm clothes and gloves are enough and probably boulders with less than 10 moves are a better choice. You also get used to it quite fast actually."

The Olympic qualification will be at focus during 2019. Many of the best athletes like Adam Ondra will most likely reduce their climbing on rock and instead replace it with competition training including Speed. During the last years, Japan has started to dominate and that goes especially on the bouldering scene. The dilemma in 2019 is that it is all about Combination and only the best male and female Japanese in the World Champion in Tokyo are guaranteed a position, as long as they are Top-6. This means that the overall World Cup is not so important for the best Japanese so they might cherry pick which comps to go for. This in fact opens up for specialist, who is not going for Tokyo, to win the overall World Cups, especially among the male. However, in general most likely to trend with more Japanese domination will increase in 2019. When it comes to route climbing, there will most likely be a stagnation, after the record year 2018, as most of the best focus on Tokyo. In regards bouldering, 2018 was also a record year and 2019 has indeed strengthen this progress trend with Charles Albert doing a 9A FA barefoot and Jimmy Webb, Daniel Woods and Nalle Hukkataival doing 8C+. Charles and Jimmy are working on two other possibly 9A projects in Fontainebleau and Daniel is going for Burden of Dreams 9A this spring. In total, there will probably be around ten guys doing at least one 8C+ or harder in 2019. At the same time, the female level continues to raise and possibly ten girls, including 13 year old Oriane Bertone, just might do 8B+ or harder.