Dave Graham (36), one of the best climbers in the world since 1999, reports on Insta that he has done Daniel Woods' Noise vs Beauty suggestion an uppgrade to 8C in Rocklands. "After battling with this rig off and on last season it was my primary objective upon returning here in Rocklands; it was an intense mental and physical journey to persevere, stay focused, not get distracted by the plethora of new boulders to climb :), and stick that last sloper from the start."

The Lead WC in Chamonix has started. Updated results You can also stay updated through the IFSC Lead App. The semi and final tomorrow will be streamed 10.30 and 20.30. (c) Eddie Fowke

Alexander Megos, Jakob Schubert, Janja Garnbret, Jain Kim, Anak Verhoeven and Akiyo Noguchi topped both qualification routes in Chamonix. Other then that, all big names but Max Rudigier #76 and Julia Chanourdie #32made it to the semi. Interesting is that eight male Japanese qualified Top-19 and among the female four made it to the semifinal. In total, 92 female and 111 male participated. Complete results

Adam Ondra reports on Insta that he has almost flashed Evan Hau's 45 meter Honour and Glory in Echo Canyon giving it a personal grade of 9a. First he fell by the 4th bolt due to a wet hold. "I lowered back to the ground immediately, rested for a few minutes and "flashed" the route on my 2nd go." (c) Sonnie Trotter In February, Adam flashed and confirmed 9a+ for Super Crackinette. In 2012, he also flashed a 9a+ but suggested a personal down grade as he did with his first 9a onsight. Adam is well known for being honest giving personal grades that are later confirmed. In total Adam has now done some 200 routes originally graded 9a and harder out of which 182, he has taken 9a credit for.

Paul Robinson has done yet another FA video from South Africa where he usually spend his summers. Just yesterday he did the FA of yet another 8C after three years of projecting. How is your bouldering lifestyle and motivation nowadays? As you know I am very dedicated to making it to 1000 climbs 8A and harder. This has been a dream of mine now for a long time and it would be a dream come true to do it! I have less than 100 left now. I really am focused now on getting home and training. I want to get very strong for the fall. I made a list of 10 climbs that I really wanted to do before the end of the year a few weeks ago. I am not sure if I will get to try them all this year but this will be my goal and motivate my training even more this august/september.

During the Speed qualification in Chamonix we could see the Olympic candidates moving fast in Speed beside 12 guys in between 5.70 and 6.15. 6.72 Mickael Mawem 6.97 Tomoa Narasaki 7.12 Manuel Cornu 7.21 Yushiyuki Ogata 9.18 Elena Krasovskaia 9.28 Miho Nonaka 9.33 Claire Buhrfeind It should be noted that three years ago 8a talked to some of the best speed climbers in the world and they did not think it was possible to get below 7.5 seconds without focusing for a long time on Speed. To get below 7 seconds they thought was almost impossible if not mainly focusing on Speed.

I heard about a minor accident yesterday due to hard belaying. The route starts on top of a pile of stones with the first quick draw very low. This means if you do not unclip the first drawers, it is very hard to stay away from the rock and belay dynamic. In theory, whenever the first quickdraw is very low, you should consider unclip it as this will increase your possibility to belay dynamic. You should practice such belaying indoors before trying it outdoors. An easy way to create a dynamic fall is actually to bend your legs, in critical situations, as this will reduce the risk to get frightened and sit down during impact. decreasing the softness of the fall.

Based on 1 000+ unique votes to, Warming-up before climbing?, with the 2014 results in brackets, we can see that still few warm up properly. This is quite interesting as often when a training article is published, the authors often underline that proper warming up is important. 06 % NO: Full power directly (4) 28 % NO: Only easy climbing (28) 14 % Sometimes/Few minutes (15) 16 % Often/8 minutes (19) 37 % YES: At least 15 min (34)