More and more climbing gyms offer digital services to their customers. This is not only comfortable for climbers – for example when getting informed about new routes via smartphone – but it also allows a comparison between the gyms and gives them visibility. There are now 34 gyms world wide that have signed up using Vertical-Life's App in order to organize their route setting and give possibility to mark routes and create challenges. Most active in January was Oslo Klatrecenter with 2 520 "Zlagged" climbs. For every month there is a Challenge like in February where everyone who Zlags 300 meters or 66 boulders take part in a Raffle with many nice prices.

Ryuichi Murai, #3 in the 8a ranking game, comments the Japan Bouldering Cup where he sensationally got the silver which made him qualify to the national team going for the World Cups. "I spent only one month to training for BJC2018. I mainly trained my weak movements. For example, coordination and triple dyno. Additionally I also did pull-up with Beastmaker2000." 1st Kokoro Fuji - Akiyo Noguchi 2nd Ryuichi Murai - Ai Mori (14) 3rd Tomoa Narasaki - Futaba Ito (15) Interesting is that it was basically only this competition with 160 participants where new athletes could qualify for the national team and the World Cup 2018. "An athlete who have high world ranking last year, and an athlete who won in Bouldering World Cup last year, could already be qualified." Futaba Ito won the Youth World Championship where she was accompanied by two 14 year olds. Ai Mori was #7 in that World Championship but she is to young to do WCs this year. Some coaches said last year in Innsbruck that these Japanese girls are the future. Bear in mind that these young girls did actually beat Miho Nonaka #4 in the WC last year as well as Aya Onoe and Mei Kotake, #10 and #11 in the WC 2017. Remember also the fast positive trend for Japan and that they had five guys in Top-8 last year. With so many new faces winning over some of the best boulderers, we just might see the Japanese domination increase in the future.

Eddie Fowke, who runs The Circuit Climbing has recently gone on Facebook to sell a limited edition run of tee shirts to raise money for the 2018 season. We spoke to Eddie to find out more about the background and future plans. “I've shot 69 World Cups over the last 5 years (starting 2013), and more than 100 international competitions in all. I made the tee shirts as a homage to 1970’s style rock band tour shirts. They are something I will do more of, this first limited run was to fund my weekend at the US Nationals, but there will be a further run available internationally to help support The Circuit in 2018 and beyond”.

Michaela Kiersch reports on Instagram that she has made the FFA of Necessary Evil in Virgin River Gorge after some 5-6 days working it. The 30+ m test-piece was bolted by Boone Speed and Chris Shama did the FA being 16 years old as his first 8c+ which was the highest grade in USA 1997. Part of the preparation for Michaela to do the classical route was the USA Bouldering Natonals where she was #11. "I wasn’t training for bouldering nationals, I was training for this! I am usually in better sport climbing shape and have been focusing my training on finger strength." The last two years, Michaela has done six 8c+ and one 8B boulder. In the Combined 8a ranking game, she is a superior #1. Interesting is that she graduated from University in November and is now a full time climber.

IFSC reports that Japan airline has become a new major partner until Tokyo Olympics 2020. "We are thrilled to have such a committed partner sharing the same vision and passion for aiming higher, especially during a period of substantial growth and new opportunities for sport climbing,” says IFSC President Marco Scolaris. “We are looking forward to flying into the challenges of tomorrow with Japan Airlines.”

Giuliano Cameroni has added 14 boulder 8A+ to 8B+ which he has done this winter mainly around Ticino, out of which 10 FAs. On the picture, the 20 year old does Iur 8B+ in Cresciano which was the vision from Markel Mendieta. Do you have more projects? There is still a lot of potential, especially for hard climbs. Many of the projects in Ticino are really hard to visualize, but when you learn how to look at the rock it seems that they are everywhere. This place is going to be futuristic!

Andrew Bisharat has made some comments and asked questions in regards the bouldering formats etc. Below you have the answers. He actually also gave some credit for my idea of creating different beta style within the same boulder. "His example was to envision a problem in which the beta could involve running/parkour-style movements on volumes, or a techy traverse solution on underclings. I actually agree with this idea in theory. It would be really cool to see a problem that lends itself to beta diversity, though in practice, I’m not sure how you could set a problem like this." IFSC route setter, Tomasz Oleksy has today answered me, - I think I can create this future problem :) Later Andrew discusses the problem that the route setters can decide who will win by favoring certain style or size. "The stakes in comp climbing are going up every year. Purses are getting bigger, and now climbing is in the Olympics. As the stakes are raised, will we begin to see more prevalence of setter bias?" Andrew's possible solution is to let programmed robots do the setting. What about simply use my original idea one more time to make it mandatory for the IFSC route setters to actually create two different style/size betas when needed?

As number of zones is the new second critera for the IFSC bouldering scoring, most probably they will present the scoring something like this. 1. 3T 4z (5:7) 2. 3T 3z (4:6) 3. 2T 4z (2:6) 4. 2T 4z (3:6) To make that much easier they can simply take out T and z and present it with points. In practice this means that a Top equals 10 points and that a zone equal 1 point and the media would be free to actually skip the T's and the z's in the result list, see below. 1. 34 (5:7) 2. 33 (4:6) 3. 24 (2:6) 4. 24 (3:6) Bear in mind that most think that two zones would be great, meaning we could continue with the same point scoring and it would be much easier for the Olympic non-climbing spectators to understand. In the 11 point system, we have also given an extra point for the flash of the top. Otherwise we could end up that a person who has flashed three tops but failed to get to the second zone on the fourth, would be beaten by somebody doing the three tops in 10 tries and getting the second bonus on the fourth boulder. In the same way, one flash and flash of all but one zones would be beaten by somebody doing all scoring on the four problems in 15 tries. Flash is the name of the game in bouldering and that is why we have given it one bonus point in the 11 point system.

IFSC have changed the Boulder World Cup rules 2018 so number of zones will be the first criteria after counting the number of tops. Previously, the second criteria has been number of attempts for the Tops. In practice, counting zones prior to attempts to tops will have most impact and create more fair ranking especially for the ones doing just one boulder. For the WC finals 2017, the only one dramatic change that would have happened, would be Rei Sugimoto moving from #4 to #2 in Meiringen. A positive consequence of the rule change, is that it will be a bit easier to follow who is in the lead as well as the ranking could be decided at a later stage. IFSC have been discussing new scoring for years also and in 2017 they put together a working group 2017 where 8a suggested the 11 point system, which also values zones more as the new IFSC rule.

Alex Puccio took her eleventh win in the USA Bouldering Nationals by beating Ashima Shiraishi with 9.7 points. They did the same number of tops but Alex controlled two more zones. Brooke Raboutou did the same number of zones as Ashima but had used two more tries. If they would have used the IFSC scoring actually Ashima would have won and Alex would have been third! IFSC scoring (USA scoring) 1. Ashima Shiraishi 2T2 4b4 (70), 2. Brooke Raboutou 2T4 4b4 (69.8) 3. Alex Puccio 2T6 4b4 (79.6). Among the male Nathaniel Coleman, #4 in the Boulder WC 2015, won his third title with the perfect score 100 points meaning he topped all four problems. Sean Bailay was second at 99.6 and Drew Ruana third by 98.6. Complete results (c) Eddie Fowke