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

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."

Due to rain and strong wind, the semi final in Xiamen has been postponed to Sunday 12.30 GMT+8, 06.30 Euro time. Live streaming link. During the qualification, it was almost a storm and some climbers actually said it made it harder to climb. The Speed qualification will take place indoors just before the Lead semifinal. The Lead final will start 18.50 GMT+8, 12.50 Euro time.

"The North Face MoonBoard Masters will take place simultaneously from four iconic MoonBoard locations around the world and streamed live online. With teamwork at its forefront, the competition will pitch five famous duos against each other in a MoonBoard battle of strength and skill." THE TEAMS: D Woods & K Condie: The Cliffs - New York City, USA A Megos & M Hayes: The Foundry - Sheffield, UK. R Gelmanov & K Kadic: Sharma Climbing - Barcelona J Chon & M Nonaka: Crux Climbing Gym - Japan T Narasaki & A Noguchi: Crux Climbing Gym - Japan The competition format is not set yet but what we know is that soon they will add points to their log-books and it will be identical to the 8a scoring system. Moon Board Masters

Alex Megos continues his rampage and has done another two 8c+, Livin' Astro and LivinAstro Glide in Rumney. During the last two months he has now done eight routes 8c+ to 9a+ as well taking the silver in the Euro Bouldering Championship and finished #8 in Arco Lead WC, where he won the semifinal. What about stepping it up and going to Flatanger and Oliana and what about doing more WC Comps and the Olympics? I'm not planning on going to Flatanger any time soon. I'd like to go to Oliana though at some point since I haven't been there at all till now. That won't happen till next year though. Too much going on at the moment. Regarding the Olympics, that's still way too far away to make any decision and I haven't done enough comps yet to see if that's something I could enjoy doing again. So for next year my plan is to do as many WC's as I can to see I could imagine completing seriously again. I won't be able to do all the circuit because of other projects I've got too next year but I hope I'll be able to fit the majority of the WC's close by into my schedule. Concerning the Olympics I'm also not sure about the format yet. I haven't trained or done the Speed route yet and at the moment I'm more focused on lead and bouldering, although I do work on my general climbing speed though with my two trainers Patrick and Dicki from the Kraftfactory because we think it's something that will improve my climbing in general. And maybe that will result in a few speed climbing trainings I'll do at some point. As for now I'm not yet in the position to make a properly thought through decision.

Tomoa Narasaki, #2 in the Bouldering World Cup, has started his preparation towards the Olympics and with very limited training he set new standards in Wuijang last weekend. He was #2 in Lead and got 7.85 in Speed. This weekend he will compete in the two disciplines again in Xiamen. (c) Eddie Fowke "I have trained Speed three times. I do endurance training every winter. My target of World Cup in Wuijang was to reach the final. The final route was simple and powerful, so it was good for me and I had no pressure. I was surprised with my results and it made me excited to train lead. I would like to get first place as soon as possible."

Alex Megos reports on Facbook with a picture from Melissa Le Neve that he has done Jaws II 9a+ in Rumney. It was originally 8c but then a hold broke and Vasya Vorotnikov made the FA in 2007 after 35 sessions. Megos did the sixth ascent out of which 9a also have been suggested. "Wow! That went a bit faster than expected! I checked it out twice and didn't really find any beta that seemed to work although I tried about 5 different possibilities."