Marine Thevenet reports on Instagram that she has done her first 8B, Fragile Steps in Rocklands. In 2014 she was #7 in the Bouldering World Cup and later she left the scene. (c) Clément Lechaptois

Lucien Martinez has done the FA of Descente en Terre Inconnue 9a in Sabart. Here is some of his story on Crimpoil. "The route starts with a short and endurance 8c+ on bad pinches for which I needed very good friction. Then you have to do a very long 8c with good 'batman' rests crossing the whole roof in the cave. That day, weather was incredibly cold for the season around 16 degrees with wind, and I managed to send the route with a great battle at the very end where it's supposed to be done."

Loic Zehani has recorded his fifth 9a, the FA of Mon oncle d'Amérique in Gargantua. Video "The route is a connection by three routes. It begins with the first pitch of an 8b+ (Las Vegas Parano), then without rest you climb the hard section of an 8c (Uncle Spit) and after a rest you finish with an hard fingery section of an 8b (Gargantuesque)."

Steve McClure put up the still unrepeated Mutation in Raven Tor in 1998. It is like an 8A extension to Evolution which 8c+ grade, at the time, was questioned. Mutation took another 21 days after having done Evolution in six days. © Keith Sharples - I just thought Mutation was more than a grade harder than Evolution but as it had also been called 8c, I thought 9a seemed appropriate. Today, I guess Evolution is considered as an 8c+ and has only gotten five repeats since Jerry Moffatt put it up in 1995. Having trad climbed for 20 years, Steve started sport climbing when he was 24. At 26 he made his first 8a redpoint and within a year he did Evolution and two years later the FA of Mutation. In total, without counting variations and link-ups, he has done nine 9a to 9b FAs out of which five are still unrepeated. Adam Ondra did the first repeat of four confirming or even saying that they are at the upper end of the grade. Several climbers over the years have tried Mutation, including brief attempts by Sharma, Ondra, Megos and Brit Pasquill but nobody has come even close. It is possibly time to call for an upgrade to 9a+. This would make Steve the second person in the world doing a 9a+ after Alex Huber but before Chris Sharma's Biographie.

- This was possibly the most spectacular and technical routes (Adam Pustelnik chief route setter) I have seen and the finish where Romain Desgranges with six seconds remaining moved from fourth to first place was extraordinary. The Norwegian coach as well as the personal trainer of Hannes Puman, Reino Horak, was totally unaware of the live streaming fiasco with several breaks in the end, no clock and just Italian commentators. Reino clocked all competitors having to fight with the new six minute rule. As there was no official clock at the scene, several coaches actually used Reino's clock to get more excitement. - I actually think Domen would have won if he was not timed out, Reino continues, which explains why his score was lower than Hannes Puman who set the bar by even climbing faster and with higher feet than Adam Ondra. On the other hand, Ondra did show up with a knee-pad, smaller than the one he used in the final, and found one perfect no-hands rest, smiling and giving thumbs up to the spectators. Among the female, Pustelnik's route was creative art as small holds got bigger, turned into progressively bigger volumes. 16 year old Laura Rogara set the bar, as Puman, climbing technically just perfect. Janja Garnbret, who was the only one to top all three routes, but was timed out in the semi, climbed with ease until a fatal mistake. Last out was Anak Verhoeven and she passed Mina Markovic and the others with at least 15 moves but failed to do the last dyno to the top. 1. Romain Desgranges FRA - Anak Verhoeven BEL 2. Adam Ondra CZE - Mina Markovic SLO 3. Jakob Schubert AUT - Jessica Pilz AUT 4. Hannes Puman SWE - Janja Garnbret SLO 5. Domen Skopfic SLO - Salome Romain Complete results (c) Eddie Fowke - The Circuit Climbing

Djdieifjrj Djdueirur has done the FA of Parálisis Espástica 8C in Navalosa, Spain. (C) Nice pic from Isa Barrero on La valse aux audiex 8B in Font. "Crimpy traverse + exit boulder. 12 movs. Perfect conditions of wind and cold. 3 months :)" This is his second 8C after the first repeat of Soyuz Low 8C FAd by Beto Rocasolano.

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.