On October 6th Alannah Yip and Matt Fultz won the 8th Portland Boulder Rally, one of America's premier bouldering events with a $10,000 cash purse and all-day festival. (c) Rich Crowder Event highlights

David Firnenburg, #3 in the Combined WCH in 2016, has done the first repeat of Gerome Pouvreau's Le Cadafist 9a in Saint Léger. "Yeah!!! 2nd ascent after Gerome. Very good job for the FA mate! Such a nice line! Bouldery sections at the start and at the top on crimps, mini pinches and pockets. Pumpy when you link it. Was heartbreaking to slip with my foot once at the very top after I climbed the hardest moves but today I came back, excited and with strong will and did it with style. Proud ascent! "

Laurent Vigouroux is clearly in the best shape of his life having done one more 8c+, Dur sexe in Lubaron and now he goes for his first 9a. In the 40+ ranking game, he is #3. "Without doubts, I benefit actually of a really good shape and I also benefit of a series of success. For this one, I was under pressure since I knew that the weather forecast would not permit one more session in this route before the next summer. So, very happy to succeed in such mental pressure conditions, which is not my best quality. Mathieu Bouyoud also did it one hour before me. Mathieu helped me a lot with some new methods. Next step for me in this spot is to combine this 8c+ with the hard end of "Le moutchiky, 8c" for a probable 9a. So I'm still on the way for my dream ;-)"

Lukasz Dudek has done another two 9a's, Der Lange Atem in Höllental and Sid Lives in Arco. "Short bouldery route. Looks ugly but it's a good piece of rock with some bad pinches and tiny crimps, 2 days." In total the Pole has now done 18 routes graded 9a, 31 8c+ and 61 8c's, so the base is ready for a 9a+ cherry on the cake.

La Sportiva celebrates its 90th anniversary with a reboot of its climbing line: there are 3 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!

Edu Marin is back home in Spain after driving back from Flatanger for almost four days, where he among others did Valhalla 9a/+. They stopped in Rodellar where Edu did Nilbru 9a in four sessions. (c) Esteban Lahoz Edu Marin is one of the best multi discipline climbers in the world, from winning the Lead World Cup in Chamonix in 2006 to do world class big wall ascents.

Fanatic Climbing reports that Cedric Lachat has done the first repeat of Pirmin Bertle's La cène du roi lézard 9a+ in Jansegg. Watching Cedric go more to the left, during his first sessions out of ten, avoiding the original elimination dyno, Pirmin thought Cedric solution was more logical and had already down graded it to 9a+ which Cedric confirms. Cedric, who previously have done 22 routes 9a and 9a+, has never worked so long for a 9 graded route. He also tried Pirmin's La barrière 9b, which is the same route but instead of the 8b start it begins with a 9a variation, but he could not do all moves. (c) Adeline Helg

Rocco Micheletto, who works full time belaying kids in an adventure park, has done his first 9a, Thunder Ribes in Arco. (c) Marco Ceramella "Climbing a 9a has been a dream for a while, I got close to sending one in my home crag (Covolo) a couple of years back, then I broke my meniscus and ACL on the key heel hook of this route and therefore I could not send it or continue to try it. Since the beginning of 2018 I started climbing in Arco with my friends even though it is almost 2 hours away from where I live. In the spring I climbed a couple of routes and immediately started working Thunder Ribes. In May I fell on the final slab of the route. I started a training circles for the summer to get ready and luckily I got the send it.

The Top-6 male final will be live-streamed today. Presentation of the finalists: Keita Dohi, Sam Avezou, Shuta Tanaka, Peter Ivanov, Filip Schenk and Yufei Pan. (c) Eddie Fowke 09.00 Speed GMT-3 Euro 14.00 11.45 Boulder 15.50 Lead

In the very first Speed race, the favorite Sam Avezou made a big slip and finished second at around 8.23. Later Shuta Tanaka fell and Peter Ivanov also made a slip so Sam was the fastest "lucky looser". In the semi Sam once again faced Pan Yufei and beat him with some split seconds. Later Pan beat Filip Schenk in the small final. In the final, Sam had a clean race and made a personal best with 6.96 seconds against Keita Dohi 7.00. Complete results It should be noted that only Tomoa Narasaki and Mickel Mamew, among the non-Speed specialists, have had a faster time at 6.70 respectively 6.77.