During the European Championship in Campitello, many lead climbers tried competing in Speed, in the international senior arena, for the first time. Michael Piccolruaz and Jan Hojer impressed with 7.98 and 8.43 respectively. Also Petra Klingler's 11.27 put her half way to Tokyo. Sean McColl has been the only top climber who has done Speed events and because of that, many have said he is the favorite to win the Olympic gold but in fact his best time ever is 8.83. Other than that Jakob Schubert got 10.23, Jernej Kruder 10.55, Domen Skofic 13.32 and Janja Garnbret 13.53. It should be mentioned that Stefano Ghisolfi did 7.98 when he was the Italian Champion but he will start training and competing in Speed later. Overall, it was really strange to watch the non-Speed climbers, beside the first three mentioned, as they disappeared from the camera screen which was following the often double as fast real Speed climber. Further more, the new false start rule including some falls made almost a quarter of the duel finals lose all the excitement. To put it mildly, it will be very strange for the non-climbing spectators to see that the potential Olympic gold medal will possibly climb 30 % or more slower than the world record at 5.48. Read also about the dumbest rule ever in the right column. 1. Iuliia Kaplina RUS - Marcin Dzienski POL 2. Anna Tsyganova RUS - Danyil Boldyrev UKR 3. Elena Remizova RUS - Stanislav Kokorin RUS Complete results Overall, Russia had five male in Top-9 and all Top-5 female were from Russia.

The best competition climber during the last 15 years, Ramon Julian Puigblanque, was just #55 in the Lead European Championship. Other than that, all the big names, but Sebastian Halenke who was #35, made it through to the semifinal. Complete results

Previously you could make one false start in Speed climbing and still have two chances during the qualification. During the European Championship, if you made a false start you were disqualified from that race but also from your second race. In other words, if you climbed the first race in 7 seconds or so but had a false start on the second race, you end up in the result list as false start. This seems really strange but the Norweigian coach got this info from three different IFSC sources. Overall, eight females and six males are listed as false start, even if many of them did had done a correct Speed climbing ascent during their first run.

Finally it’s here! The long-awaited guide to ‘El Desfiladero de La Hermida’, the incredible valley which borders the Picos de Europa in north-west Spain, is at the printers and will be available in shops very soon. The valley, known for its amazing tufas, is a fantastic place to climb and in this definitive guide we publish topos to the magnificent venues of Cicera and Carcalosa two outstanding crags which offer some of the best climbing in Cantabria. As well as these there are 24 high-quality crags that have never been published in any book including: Pechón, Estragüeña, Cueva Hermida, Cosgaya, Cabanes and many, many more. The guide is the product of a collaboration between Roca Verde and the most active local climbers, ensuring that not only are the grades and lines correct but that the right people get plenty of materials to continue there with their work from out Bolt Fund. So a big thanks goes to Alberto Hontavilla, Fran Caso, Javier Sáenz, Carlos Cué, Ángel Bengoechea, Gema Lanza, Sergio Torio and others. As well as this we have awesome, inspirational photos to get you psyched from the cameras of two of the valley’s best lensmen (and active climbers) José Alberto Puente and Reini Wallmann. El Desfiladero de La Hermida is published by Roca Verde (authors of the best-selling Roca Verde guide) and this latest guide is A5, totally bilingual in English and Spanish, and has 176 pages, 32 crags and nearly 700 routes from III+ to 8c+… You can pre-order the guidebook in Roca Verde website by just 20€ (del.inlc). Cool video from James Pearson and Caro Ciavaldini discovering the area a few years ago.

Alex Puccio, who was fourth in the Vail World Cup, has done her third 8B during the last four weeks, Evil Backwards in Mt Evans. "Have wanted to check this boulder out for a bit now. Psyched I was able to send it in one session! Definitely harder the shorter you are.... big moves with really far feet for the crux! Had to try hard!" Measuring competitions and rock, she is together with Anna Stöhr and Shauna Coxsey contending for being the best female boulder the last five years. In June she also won Bend Summer Comp, done her first trad multi-pitch and turned 28. "I'm not a big fan of posting glamour shots and such, but today is my B-Day and my good friend @xoxonaomiii posted this picture of me.

There are 65 male and 59 female scheduled to compete in the European Championship in Lead in Campitello that starts tomorrow with the qualification. The live-streaming starts 09.00. On Saturday, the semi begins at 11.15 and the finals begin 20.45. Updated results Something isn't eresting is that Adam Ondra makes his first appearance on the competition scene in 2017. With the Combined Olympics is getting closer Jan Hojer, Jernej Kruder, Domen Skofic, Jakob Schubert, Janja Garnbret, Petra Klingler and Mina Markovic will make interesting starts in Speed.

Akira Waku repeats Dai Koyamada's former 8C Hyper Ballad.

Squamish Climbing Mag has presented an interesting interview.