Waltus Burger has done his first 8c+, Livin AstroGlide in Rumney and as he commented, "Makes the 3am start before class worth it." We followed up and got an amazing dedication story culmination after some 50 days, including five hours driving/studying. "I got up at 3am, left about 3:15, stopped in Rumney at the local coffee shop, then 25 min approach up to the cliff. After I sent on my second try at 8pm I supported my buddy Michael on his 8a project and he absolutely crushed it! Then I cruised 2.5 hours back to Portland for a nursing exam in older adult health, than celebrated with ice cream and cookies! Normally I do the drive solo. I'll listen to podcasts for school and books on tape to help me study, so it works out well. That's my most productive study time, haha. I'm all about the last minute study cram. Its worked so far, so I'm not gonna change anything yet. My time schedule is super heinous. I'm in a full time accelerated nursing program, so I'm currently taking 20 credits this fall, and work about 10-20 hours a week at the Salt Pump Climbing gym as the head coach--which leaves basically no time for training. I get up most mornings at 5:30 to do homework and squeeze in any training I can before school--mostly just campusing and bouldering, nothing structured."

James Webb has done his 14th 8C by the FA of The Outher Limits in Donner Summit. "Yesssss! What a stunning line.. 17 moves of power endurance climbing lands you at the headwall at around 18ft. After a 7B+ lip encounter you tackle another 20 feet of moderate climbing to the top. Feels good to finish this one off. Absolutely loving Tahoe!" In the 8a ranking game, also including one 8C+ he is back on top again. (c) From his Insta.

The female semifinal was cancelled after eight climbers and instead all the 13 double tops from the qualifications will compete in the final tonight. It should also be mentioned that originally the plan was to run the semi the day before but rain made them postpone it. Among the males, the Boulder WC winner Jongwon Chon got an early lead starting second getting to the third last hold, which made the commentator say. "We will definately see some tops. Just before they said, "The conditions are excellent" Later it started to rain and the conditions deteriorated. In the end several breaks were needed and at the end a longer 45 min break was needed as the holds started to get wet. The guys competing just before the break in pouring rain, including Domen Skofic, did not have a chance it seemed. After the break, the conditions seemed better but nevertheless Romain Desgranges did a technical mistake and was #22. As Stefano Ghisolfi made it comfortably to the final the overall title became much more open. #2 in the semifinal was the runner up in the Bouldering WC 2017, Tomoa Narasaki, who also was second in the last Lead WC. Overall, Ghisolfi is the only Western European in the final together with one guy from Ukrane and six Asians. In fact, among the Top-12, there were nine Asians and one from Italy, France and Ukraine respectively. Complete results

Anak Veroeven, who won the World games as well as the Euro Championship, got her first WC Lead victory in 2017 by topping out with ease. Looking confident as ever, Janja Garnbret mistimed a jump as she climb pretty fast, in order to beat Anak's time. (C) Eddie Fowke - The Circuit Climbing Among the male, it was a total Asia domination with Keiichiro Korenaga getting his first Lead victory and he jumped to third overall. Tomoa Narasaki was runner up as last week in Wuijang. Due to schedule changes he had not time to do the Speed qualification but at this point, he seems to be well ahead of the others on their way to Tokyo 2020. 1. Keiichiro Korenaga JPN - Anak Verhoeven BEL 2. Tomoa Narasaki JPN - Ashima Shiraishi 3. YuFei Pan CHI - Janja Garnbret SLO 4. Jongwon Chon KOR - Jessica Pilz AUT 5. Fedir Samoilov UKR - Mina Markovic SLO Complete results Noteworthy is that it YuFei Pan was #13 in the Youth A World Championship in Innsbruck where he also got 7.95 in Speed, meaning he is also a contender for the Olympics. Among the female, ranked 3 to 5th were ranked based on time. It must also be mentioned that the live-streaming had big problems but luckily towards the end of both finals, everything worked out great.

1. Romain Desgranges 440 - Janja Garnbret 565 2. Stefano Ghisolfi 362 - Jain Kim 445 3. Keiichiro Korenaga 339 - Anak Verhoeven 404 4. Domen Skofic 270 - Jessica Pilz 330 5. Marchello Bombardi 246 - Julia Chanourdie 307 Complete results. Ashima Shiraishi is #7 although having just competedin the last four events. (C) Eddie Fowke - The Circuit Climbing Janja Garnbret has already secured the overall title again and she has broken the total combined point score in 2017 with a big margin. Beside winning five Lead events, she has also won three boulder.s Out of all the 26 World Cups and World Championships she has participated in, she has won 50 %. Jain Kim has won 27 Lead WC's and one World Championship. What has been amazing to see is that she has changed her style climbing faster and more dynamic this year. If Stefani Ghisolfi wins the last event in Kranj, Romain Desgranges need to be #15 to secure the overall title. Interesting to see that only four of the guys being Top-10 in 2016 are Top-10 also in 2017. In the National Team ranking, France is ahead of Japan and Slovenia. The country that has a negative trend is Austria who still is #4 in the nations ranking.

Vladislav Deulin and Anouck Jaubertwon the Xiamen Speed World Cup and got also the overall title. Reza Alipourshenazandirfar was second although he only competed in five events and as a matter of a fact, another three guys in the Top-10 overall did also skip at least two comps. It seems only seven six guys competed in all seven events. Among the female, ten girls competed in all events. Noteworthy is that Jan Hojer sat a personal best with 7.28. The Japanese successful Lead climbers did have to skip Speed due to the changes in the schedule. Complete results

Japanese males got five guys in the Top-8 in the qualification in the Lead World up in Xiamen. Among the Top-9, seven guys from Asia! Among the females, we saw 13 double tops. (c)Eddie Fowke - The Circuit Climbing. Complete results. Kokoro Fujii on the picture, who won the first Boulder Cup in 2017, won the qualification ahead of Tomoa Narasaki and Yoshiyuki Ogata, all from Japan. (c) Eddie Fowke - The Cicuit Climbing

Heavy rain stopped the female semifinal as some of the holds were wet. The officials later decided to cancel the semifinal and let all the 13 female who topped the both qualification routes go directly to the final. The males kept on struggling... Even bigger problems in Speed as the stopwatch did not work properly. The plan is to restart it after the semifinal.

Adam Ondra, who made a 8C FA four days ago, has done one more Vrtule in Holstejn. "8C/C+ brutally powerful, 4 days". Picture and video on his Instagram The next day he moved to Moravský kras where he did the FA of Pučmeloun 8B+. In total, the 24 year old has now done 42 boulders 8B+ to 8C+, out of which 16 FAs. In the 8a ranking game, Adam is #7 and he needs one more 8C to be #1.

Vrtule 8C/C+ from Adam Ondra on Vimeo.

Reino Horak, former national coach for Sweden and now for Norway, has written an open letter to IFSC which he says sums up the overall opinion of both athletes, coaches and even some of the officials. Fairness of the athletes was lacking. "In the end, Xiamen turned out to be a good World Cup but for many athletes it was an anti-climactic event and IFSC needs to guarantee and work out guidelines so this won't happen again, especially with Tokyo 2020 ahead. Outdoor venues need to have a better plan for bad weather meaning that more protection on the sides as well as the top is essential. If anyhow a similar situation occurs, IFSC needs to assure the athletes that sportmanship and fairness are their highest priority. Some male climbers did not get a fair chance due to changing conditions in the semi and some female were not allowed to climb at all after the qualification. Imagine training hard and invest time and money to fly to Xiamen. In the female qualification you end #14 but due to a cancelled semifinal, after eight starters, you were not allowed to go for your final onsight challenge. Instead, you watch a final with 13 girls who all topped both qualification routes, followed by a final with 8 males who all did an earlier full semifinal. If all 26 female participating athletes had created the final, which would not have made the final take much longer time, everyone would have been pleased including the spectators."