During the last years, we have seen a great progress when it comes to redpoint grades for both male, female, youngsters and oldies. Strangely enough, when it comes to route onsights it seems the level is decreasing beside Adam Ondra. Nowadays, it is very seldom we hear about 8c's respectively 8a+' being onsighted by male and female. In comparison, Ondra has done 84 onsights 8c and harder. In bouldering, we saw some progress up to 8B and even 8B+ some years ago but last year, almost none did flash an 8B. Kind of strange as there exist videos of most of the hard 8B out there and also that there are many more to choose from compared to five years ago. Among the male, James Webb sticks out with 19 8B boulders flash. When the 8a scorecard was set up in 2000, we choose to award onsights very high in order to motivate more onsights. Maybe it is time to increase the bonus and also report more high class onsight? Remember that it might not be a coincidence that Adam Ondra had a focus on onsights being a teenager. In general, many coaches and trainers say that it is better to build a wide onsight pyramid instead of just redpointing a personal best.

Jakob Schubert reports on Insta that he has done the second ascent of Chris Sharma's El Bon Combat in Cova de l'ocell giving it a personal grade of hard 9a+. "I know it's easy to not think about it and just take the grade of the first ascensionist which in this case is 9b/+ but I feel the responsibility to have more thoughts about it. For me it felt easier from the first day I tried it and I would guess it is a hard 9a+. Curious what others will think." Jakob has been one of the leading competition climbers in the World the last ten years and this year he was the Lead as well as the Combined World Champion, beside winning the Lead World Cup. The 27 year old Austrian has previuosly done three 9b's, seven 9a+' and two 8C boulders. El Bon Combat is located just 40 min oustide Barcelona and it was bolted by Martí Iglesias Galobart. It is 25 meters and the really spectacular route is made up by a mixture of sand stone and conglomerate. The difficulty is based on several 8A Boulder problems connected with poor rests. (c) Javi Pec

Over the years, doctor and coaches have warned for an increased number of growth plate fractures and 8a has often informed about the problem. Here is a Eric Hörst article from 2017 and here is one by Volker and Isabelle Schöffl from this spring. Sadly and very unfortunate we have just lately heard many more stories preventing some advanced kids to stop climbing. The fracture often appears during the year of the highest growth velocity for the youngsters focusing to much on power in the gym. It seems most coaches are aware of the problem but this seems not to be the case for the parents and kids. Two coaches have recently reached out to 8a asking us to write another warning article as they see an increase risk for more fractures that actually could mean the kids are forced to totally stop climbing. Campus board and repeativey working on the same bouldering moves are the worst thing. In fact, all type of intensive finger training should be avoided during the year when the youngster grow the most. Remember that Adam Ondra being a teenager his focus was onsight, technic and endurance.

Felipe Camargo, who previously has done one 9a+ and one 8C, has repeated Chris Sharma's 9a Gancho Perfecto in Margalef. Although it was put up ten years ago it only has had five repeats, out of which everyone calling it hard. The Brazilian with 66 000 followers on Insta suggests an upgrade to 9a+. (c) Anva Creative "I tried it for basically 2 months now! But the second month, the end of the route was totally wet! So I just trained in the gym here at Sharma climbing and climbed a lot on the bottom! Now it dried and i did it :) I have two weeks left in Spain and I think I will focus on Bon Combat. I dunno if I can do it but I want to get close and comeback to it. It is amazing."

Matilda Söderlund reports on Insta that she has done Pure Imaginaation 8c+ in Red River Gorge. Andy Wickstrom In 2012, Matilda was #6 in the World Championship and later she focused on getting a Master degree in Business Administration. This year she is back with four routes 8c and harder. ”So, so happy that I managed to keep it together and send it on the very last day! I was very close about a week earlier and then it got super cold (too cold for me to be able to climb on the crimps of Pure Imagination haha). Then we got one day with perfect conditions and I was able to send it I learnt a lot and enjoyed the process of projecting and all of the mental challenges & mind games that it includes. Pure Imagination is an amazing line (bolted by Kenny Baker), a lot of nice crimps and fun sequences. Can’t wait to come back to the Red for more climbing!”

Adam Ondra during the end of his onsight attempt of The Salathe Wall in Yosemite, where he fell on an 8a+ trad pitch.

Hannes Puman, #4 in the Euro Championship in 2017, has had an amazing trip to Red River Gorge doing six 8c+'. On the picture by Kristoffer Klev he is doing Pure Imagination but the best one was Golden Ticket. Wow! So how do you like RRG and which was the best route and what about going for a 9a? I like the Red, it's a nice place with a lot of cool routes. The general style is quite basic and the grades are often soft. My favorite route that I have climbed is The tube, the line is beautiful, the holds are nice and it climbs very well. When I did the madness cave in one day I onsighted two 8b+ but I haven't done any harder onsights than that. I think there are two 9a's here but both of them look bad so I don't want to try them. In total i have done over 40 routes 8a and harder (guidebook grades). Grades and climbing 9a are not so important for me. Although it would have been awesome to do Biographie and Action Directe.

Muriel Sarkany, who in between 1997 and 2004 won the Lead WC 5 times and the remaining 3 years she was runner-up, did Era Vella 9a (8c+) in 2017 when she was 43 years old. The video was just released.