3rdrockclothing reports that Gerard Rull has done La Rambla 9a+ in Siurana. "It is clear Gerard has certainly left behind his serious pulley injury which occurred in 2016 which required surgery. His recovery encompassed most of 2017, it is exciting to see him back on top form." On his Instagram with a picture by Ilia Karpenko: "I never felt so loved and supported by all my people. So I just want to say thanks. Thanks to all those that supported me all the way here, that believed in me in every single moment, even in the darkest ones:" The FA of La Rambla was done in 2003 and it has now been repeated 19 times, out of which seven times just the last year, which makes it the most repeated 9a+ in the world. The FA was made as an eliminate and once the repeaters did go further out using a jug, Ramonet said his version was harder. The 9a+ grade has also been questioned later but all the last ten repeaters have confirmed it. Originally, it was Alex Huber who did the FA in 1994 to an anchor some six meters below calling it La Ramla 8c+. Alex have later said that his route should be considered 9a based on modern grading and some repeaters including Adam Ondra have confirmed this.

Based on 1 000+ unique votes, "How do you climb/train?", we can see that the results are more or less the same as an identical poll in 2015. This might be interesting to some as it seems there are more focus on training programs in the media. The first time we did the poll was in 2013 and then there were less focus on training. 13 % I follow a strict program - 13 % in 2015/ 10 % in 2013 46 % A bit of both - 48 % / 40 % 41 % I just climb - 39 % / 50 %

Chris Ring has done some analysis based on the 8a.nu database to see if age has any impact on the reached peak climbing grade for U.S. climbers. R & I has found Ring's analysis interesting and published a long article. In the diagram, we can see that in between 18 - 36 age, the hardest reached grade is almost the same. Even more interesting, Ring tracked the change in the maximum reached grade from year to year and he actually found a late blooming tendency. "The model estimated that a person’s hardest grade will gradually increase between the early 20’s and the early 40’s, on average." Looking practically on which ages perform the hardest grades in climbing we can see that for the female, it varies from 13 - 39 (Shiraishi and Sarkany). Among the male we have had 14 year old' that perform on the highest level and just now Yuji Hirayama (49) is close to send La Rampla 9a+. This means that climbing is unique when it comes to a wide age gap performing at the highest level for physical sports.

Eric Hörst has made an in-depth analysis of Adam Ondra's video doing Silence 9c and presented it on Training for Climbing. The keys he has found are; Speed; "In my 40 years as a climber, I’ve never witnessed (or viewed on video) a climber moving so fast up a difficult climb." Intervals: "Like Margo Hayes’ ascent of Biographie, Adam climbed all the crux chunks in under 60 seconds—quite literally racing from rest position to rest position—and, just like Margo, Adam spent more time resting on the route than he did actually climbing it!" "The anaerobic lactic energy system can support a high ATP flux in the working muscles for approximately 60 seconds of sustained, high-power pulling and crimping." Screaming; "his MO of screaming through hard sequences is an excellent strategy to drive deep breathing and maintain aerobic power, by avoiding the common problem of “legacy breath holding” (as I call it) in which you continue to breath-hold beyond the instant of doing a single hard move (this results in hypoxia and a greater rate of fatigue)." So to put it simple, this means while training in the gym, you should opt for training to climb faster than normal and divide the routes in 3-4 intervals and in between focus on resting.

Daniel Woods reports on Facebook that he has done his first 9b, La Capella in Siurana on his fifth day on. Adam Ondra put up the bouldery route in 2011 and last month Stefano Ghisolfi did the first repeat. (c) Jon Cardwell "The climb is broken into 3 boulder problems with no rest. An intro 5 move 8A+ (v12), straight to a 7 move 8A+/B v12/13, straight to a 5 move 7C (v9). After this you get a victory 7b (12b) to the anchor. All natural and amazing movement with some of the coolest grips I’ve grabbed onto." Daniel has been one of the leading climbers the last ten years especially in bouldering having done both 8C+ and a flash of an 8b+. In 2010, he won the boulder WC in Vail.

Moritz Perwitzschky has been on a nice trip to Ticino where he flashed Ganymede Takeover 8A+ and another two 8A's beside doing four more 8A+'. What is special with the 18 year old who is #3 in the Combined 8a ranking game, is his extremely wide grade pyramid. Already last year we picked this up based on this question. Is it not time to raise the bar and go for something really hard? I think not. I just want to climb as much as possible and the result doesn't even matter. The fitness and the sends will come sooner or later, if you don't get injured. And as I don't do any systematical training, I don't really know, what I'm capable of so let's see. This year, we can see that he has raised the bar based on this question. What about the 2018 plan and ambition? 2018 plan climbing and bouldering outside as much AS possible, summer Rocklands, 9a Route, 8C Boulder is the goal for this year.

Livello Zero has published an interview with the film maker Bernardo Gimenez. "We choose to keep the movie in a documentary format, without the over-polished look which a lot of climbing films generally try to achieve.

Here you have Adam Ondra's solid wide grade pyramid. This focus to also do relatively easier routes/boulders might be the key to become a lifestyle climber and to have a long time successful climbing arrier. A wide pyramid and enjoying every climbing challenge is probably most important especially for the youngsters as it sets the ground for your climbing lifestyle. As a matter of a fact, many of the best climbers in the history, beside Ondra, have also a wide pyramid instead of just focusing on increasing in grades. The coach of Alex Megos have said that they had an holistic approach and they actually tried to hold him back. Still, Megos has the same focus to either do the routes relatively fast or try another. Other top climbers with a wide grade pyramid is Chris Sharma, Dani Andrada, James Webb, Stefano Ghisolfi, Dai Koyamada, Ramon Julian Puigblanque, Fred Nicole, David Graham and Daniel Woods. At the same time, it is often the guys with the wide pyramid that also have done the most impressive onsights and flashes. On the other hand, there actually exist several top climbers with a pointy pyramid that later have almost stopped climbing. So maybe the best training advice for long term progress and enjoyment, for some, might simply be to just climb as much as possible increasing the foundation of the pyramid.

Based on the star rating of almost 5 million ascents, here are the popular Crags/Areas with the highest quality rating. Just scroll and "mouse over" the list and you can also easily find the best or worst for every country. Interesting to see is that the Boulder and Route list are dominated by USA and Europe respectively. Phalz is mentioned in both list! (c) Markus Köhler Boulder 1.8 Yosemite 8 841 ascents, Brione - 2 921 1.7 Poudre Canyon - 3 498 1.6 RMNP - 12 636 1.5 Joe's Valley - 22 935, Phalz - 5 574, Conceição - 3 967 1.4 HP 40, Targassonne, Annot, Moe's Valley, Sintra Routes 1.6 Phalz - 7 997, Montanejos - 5 686 1.5 Finale - 20 635, Terradetts - 8 155, American Fork - 6 751, Verdon 1.4 Céüse - 34 732, New River Gorge, St Légere, Rifle, Maple Canyon, Zillertal, Ten Sleep, Basler Jura

Martin Stráník reports on Instagram that he has done Der mit dem Fels Tanzt 8C in Chironico n just two days. (c) Kateřina Stráník Martin won the silver in the Boulder World Championship in 2007 and has been competing actively since. In 2015 and 2016, he was runner up in two World Cups. In total the Czech has previously done 27 boulders 8B+ and three 8C's and he is #3 in the 8a ranking game.