Angela Eiter, the best female Lead competition climber in the history who last year did a 9b, has done some yet impressive ascents. In Frankenjura she has done Battle Cat 8c in just three attempts and there is more. (c) Bernie Ruech “Today I had a cool sending day in Allgäu in Germany! I completed "Basica 8c/+" and the combination "Andiamo, 8c+".

Alex Honnold and Tommy Caldwell have set their third Speed record of the almost 900 meters The Nose in Yosemite, 1.58.07. (c) John Evans

Jonathan Siegrist has onsigthed Wrongdoer 8b+ in Mt Charleston where he also did Arrested Development 9a. "Actually used a figure four! Enormous move at the third bolt was my crux." Figure four means that you put your leg over your arm and almost sit on it in order reach further to a relatively small hold. More info and video sequence on his Insta In the 8a ranking game, the 167 cm tall is #4.

Every month, Vertical-Life run different challenges with a chance for great prizes for everyone who "zlags" some hundred meters of climbing. The June VL Challenge is to climb 550 meters or some 120 boulders and you can be the winner of a free spot of a Rock buster Europe trip in September and many more prizes. In the challenge you can also get an updated ranking for the gyms, the crags and the individuals zlagging most meters.

Pirmin Bertle has made the FA of Focus Pocus 9a+ in Jansegg and you have the full story here. "The hardest single move of this first seven-moves-boulder is an extremely extended stretch out to a miniscule one finger pocket. It you don’t hit it well, you won’t hold it. If you are smaller than 1,80m you won’t reach out to the foot holds and when you don’t have my finger strength – I have to admit that my static power isn’t the worst neither – you won’t move at all in the whole sequence. And if you have thicker fingers than me – what should be the case for most of the very strongly trained high end climbers – you won’t even enter into this mono." Pirmin has previoulsy done 20 routes 9a and harder out of which 14 FA, including two 9b'sand two 9a+'s.

Based on more than 1 500 unique votes, here are the results to - Male Climbing Hero? Results from 2017 in brackets. 33 % Adam Ondra (32) 16 % Alex Megos (7) 09 % Chris Sharma (17) 07 % Alex Honnold, Fred Nicole and Wolfgang Güllich (12) 05 % Tommy Caldwell (5) 03 % Dani Andrada (6) and Yuji Hirayama (3) 09 % Others

R & I reports that Alex Honnold and Tommy Caldwell has set a new Speed record of the 900 meters long The Nose in Yosemite, 2.01.50. Last week they did it in 2.10.15 so probably they will try to go sub 2 hours next.

Japan dominated the male qualification in Japan with six guys in Top-12 and a total of seven into the semifinal. Further down the list, they had 13 among Top-32. Complete results

Gabri Moroni and Akiyo Noguchi won the World Cup in Japan after also having won the semifinal. Overall the boulders were a bit too hard with three female and two male not doing one single boulder. Luckily both the male and female comp finished with Gabri and Akiyo topping out with flashes. 1. Gabri Moroni ITA 24 - Akiyo Noguchi JPN 33:5 2. Tomoa Narasaki JPN 13:1 - Miho Nonaka JPN 33:6 3. Rei Sugimoto JPN 13:4 - Ekatarina Kipriianova Rus 22 Complete results Interesting is that Gabri Moroni was #7 in his Boulder World Cup debut in 2004. Later the same year he got the bronze in the European Championship being just 16 years old. Between 2007 and 2009, he had his most successful years getting a silver in each year, being #6, 4 and 3 overall. Later during 25 World Cups and Championships he was at best #6 until 2017. With two 9a+' and one 8C, the Italian is one of the best sport climber during the last 15 years.