NEWS

Ondra's endless summer, Innsbruck and Salathe OS
Adam Ondra is spending one month in Canada and started of by onsighting Existence Mundane 8c and Endless Summer 8b in Acephale. (c) Petr Pavlicek Then he will start his preparation for the World Championship in Innsbruck where he plans to also compete in Speed. In the autumn his big goal is to do an onsight try of Salathe wall in Yosemite. It is 35 pitches up to 8a and considered as the best route on El Capitan and normally it takes four days. Ondra hopes to do it in 12 hours. More info on Livellozero, who has translated a full length interview by the Czech Radio Radiozhurnal, where Adam also says. He does not like gyms with just colorful boulder problems as it reduce the variation. Innsbruck has the best wall in the world. He is currently working with a Ballet Master. "I think that my specific training for the speed climbing will be of five or ten percent of my total training volume for the Olympics."

8c+ by Margo Hayes
Margo Hayes reports on Margo Hayes that she has done Joe Kinder's Waka Flocka Flame 8c+ in Rifle. (c) Joe Kinder Here is an 8a training interview after Margo had done La Rambla 9a+ last year, when she also did Biographie 9a+, so outdoors she is a contender for being the #1 female. She has made head lines since 2010 when she did a 7C+ boulder being 12 years old. In 2016, she was the Youth World Champion in both Lead and Boulder. Last year her best result was #6 in the Lead World Cup and she has said her goal is the Olympics, however, she is not in the start list for the first three Lead WCs in Europe this summer.

9a/+ by Jakub Koneฤnรฝ
Jakub Koneฤnรฝ, the last two years Euro Youth Champion, reports on Insta that he has done Proces 9a in Visnove. "Then I wanted to make some pics of myself and 10mins after I accidentally made a second ascent of @adam.ondra โ€˜s โ€œProcesorโ€ (9a/a+), the extension of this thing. Today the Czech was #2 in the Euro Youth Cup in Uster. The next weekend he will compete in the World Cup in Villars where he last year was #13.

The Norwegian coach Reino Horak reports about a high class competition with good routes and nice spirit. Surprisingly, Eastern European countries dominated. Although Austria got one gold and a silver, with just one more Top-10 position, this most have been one of the weakest results for the country that has dominated the scene for many years. 99: Yannick Flohe GER - Michelle Hulliger SUI 01: Luka Potocar SLO - Laura Rogora ITA 03: Thomas Podolan AUT - Nika Potopova UKR Complete results

Vertical-Life July Challenge
Vertical-Life July Challenge "Mark your sent routes and boulders with a "Zlag!" in the Vertical-Life app, collect 450 meters or 100 boulder problems and be rewarded. Lots of great prizes are waiting for you again. Of course also the ascents in your climbing gym count.

Piotr Schab has added an onsight of Punch on ire 8c in Cuenca to his scorecard with an interesting ethical comment. "Done the route, but the foothold broke moments before clipping the chain." Climbing is an interesting sport with no referees where we the community has developed the ethics and rules. There is often no black or white and instead there are often different shades of grey. 8a has published some practice and ethics based on a traffic light green-yellow-red system. I think Piotr's ascent is valid and support him for being open so everyone can have their own opinion. Sometimes the anchor is placed too high creating an unnatural crux of a route. In such case, you can gladly tick the route even if you could not clip the anchor but you should consider giving it a lower grade.

8B by Nina Williams
Nina Williams has done her second 8B, The Shining in RMNP. In the 8a ranking game, the 28 yer old is #3. "One punt and four sessions later, on the eve of a full moon, it happened!! All before the snow landing turned into a lake! And my shoe didn't fall off this time. A Cinderella ending ^_^"

Fanatic climbing reports that some of Dai Koayamada's hard core boulders have been chopped.

First 9a for Filip Schenk (18)
Filip Schenk, #2 in the last year Combined World Youth Championship and who has won the latest Euro Youth Cups in both Lead and Boulder, has done his first 9a, Le Cadre Nouvelle in Cรฉรผse. This was the 18 year old's first trip to Cรฉรผse and he he only needed two days for taking the 9a down. (c) Cit Seeit In 100 days, he will compete in the Youth Games in Buenos Aires. "For me the training has not changed as much after climbing became olympic, except that I started to do also some speed training but the other two disciplines, boulder and lead, I have always trained so that stayed the same. Yes of curse I would like to take part at the Olympic games but its really hard for me to qualify so I will try to do my best at the Youth Olympic Games this year and than I will see.