Being a National Youth Coach for many years I see and hear that the scene is changing a lot, especially for the youngest category. In the last European Youth Cup in Imst there were 100 youngsters 02- 03 competing and level for the top has gone up. Flash is nice but at the same time, the coaches and parents are running the beta and some of the not so strong kids were crying behind the scene, after an early fall. My focus as a coach was equally as much outdoors and we never did any structured or periodization training before the comps. I sometimes let almost "beginners" compete but just as a motivation boost. The message to the coaches and parents who bring some not so strong kids, just focus on the fun. Do not set up a structured training program and create beta robot climbers at the scene in order to optimize their performance. It is just not fair to the not so experienced kids who are competing against youngsters that possibly have trained 15+ hours for several years. Trying to optimize the performance for the "beginners" will just creates anxiety and possibly they will just stop competing.

Katrin Gründler (born Sedlmayer) has done her second 8c, Roof Warrior in Frankenjura and her story is quite interesting. (c) moritz perwitschky "I started climbing when I was 10 years old. In these years my focus was on alpine routes (“Fleichbank Ostwand, Wilder Kaiser” at the age of 13). Then I was fascinated by on sight climbing and competition-climbing (greatest success European Champion 2000 in Munich and Weltcup Winner in Lecco 2002). During the following years climbing got somewhat less important because I finished studying and had two children. Bit by bit climbing became again more and more important to me, and I was lucky to meet some strong young climbers who motivated me to try harder routes. So I was able to climb one 8c two years ago and now I scored again. To gain success I spent about 10 days on “Roof Warrior” (8c), Universum, Frankenjura. The climbing is very athletical and needs a lot of endurance. You are starting with a vertical wall, followed by an impressive roof. I really enjoyed this kind of climbing, because it´s my style." Due to clever and well adapted training and above all, great motivation I am still able, in spite of my age, to climb quite hard routes. Maybe I could have climbed harder routes at the age of twenty but unfortunately I never tried."

The first European Youth Cup in 2017 started out in Imst with 250 participants. The route setting team included Kilian Fischuber and many said it was the best route setting ever. Previous years, Austria and Slovenia have dominated but now the top positions were more evenly spread out. As previous years, out of the big countries UK and especially Germany have hard time getting their youth high up in the ranking. Several hundred more pictures from Kletterzentrum. The Norwegian head coach, Reino Horak, agrees that the route setting was excellent and also comments that it can be seen that the level of Youth B has gone up. Here are the winners and noteworthy is that Nika Potapova was the only one who topped out all three routes. All three boys and Nika are 8a members. 98: V Shevchenko RUS - H Doumont BEL 00: F Schenk ITA - N Arc FRA 02: A Gines ESP - N Potapova UKR Complete results

Rafa Fanega, who started climbing at 16 and did his first 8c+ being 39 years old, has done another two 8c+' the last week, El engaño and the FA of Maldita Envidia both in Villanueva del Rosario. The 163 cm tall and 42 years old has now done nine 8c+'. In total, Rafa has recorded 1 679 routes, out of which one third are FA's. Most of his FA's are from Fin del Mundo outside Madrid, which has been one of the most popular crags in Spain recently, although it is closed between January 15th to June 15th. The picture by Raul Santano is from Fin del Mundo. Interview by our spanish editor Talo Martin. Do you think this could be the season to climb your first 9a? To be honest I don't know. My life is bolt routes somewhere here and somewhere there. I climb as much as I bolt new routes, and in this way it is hard to be focus in something hard. The days I climb something hard is always without any expectations. I work 121 days a year and that gives me loads of free time, and with so much rock I don't rest too much. Have you any idea of how many routes do you bolted? I think that more than 1.000, but I guess I should count them. Since the day I live in Andalusia I don't know.. It's true that I could have bought a pretty nice camper van with the money I spent in the last decade. Always there are friends who help you with some bolts and hangers and I appreciate that. For me bolting is important as climbing.

Christof Rauch has done his third 8C FA in just eleven days, Carinthian Dreams in Kärnten. Prior to these amazing sending days that have made him #1 in the 8a ranking game, he had done 450 boulders 8A to 8B+/C basically in just four years. The picture shows his wide pyramid. Interview with the full time technician who got his first sponsor just some months ago. "Oh my god! Seems like I'm in the best shape ever! This is the hardest and one of the best problems I've ever done. It links the crackline (~8A+) into "Punching in a Dream" (~8B+). I've never put so much effort in a boulder problem, all in all it took me about 17 sessions. Got really lucky with today's windy and pretty cold conditions. Compared to all the other hard boulders I've done/tried I would say it sits probably on the upper range of the grade. Just happy now!" (c) Simon Brunner

Öreg-lyuk egyike a jelenlegi legnépszerűbb hazai boulder helyeknek. Ez tény, bár azt is kijelenthetjük csak egy nagyon kis maroknyi csapata a hazai mászóknak képes itt élvezni a mászást. Öreg-lyuk ugyanis egy barlangrendszer, melynek a legtöbb útja és vonalvezetése a plafonban található lyukakon, peremeken és (amiért Serényi Repedés Balázs is felfigyelt rá) plafonrepedéseken megyen. A fokozatok zöme a 7A-7B skálától felfelé helyezkedik el, jelenlegi legnehezebbje a Patkány által nyitott 8A+/B, egy direkt beszállóboulder az Importáruba. Ősz óta rendszeresen mennek ide verdák, ha a hely éppen nem vizes. Számos projekt máig megnyitásra vár. A projekteléseknek meg is lett az eredménye, Ipach Marci az utóbbi évek egyik legprogresszívebben fejlődő sportmászója befejezte hosszú jegyességét az Importáruval, bezsebelve így az első plafon 8A-ját. Kucsera Bálintnak sem kellett sok, valahogy kifújta őt is a gerecsei szellő és egy nap alatt ismételte az Importáru-t, a Csé bétával - véleménye szerint karcosan de így is érheti még a 8A-t. A bleaui 7C+ nál keményebb azért fater!! -így a román borostás buldózer. Nándi hazalátogatásainál már megszokhattuk, hogy leaprítódik pár megaprojekt vagy nyílik pár újdonság. Nndes most az Import áru retur variánsát nyitotta meg, Exportáru néven 7C+ -ért, ami jó lehetőség lehet a különböző Öreg-körök megnyitására. Azért Bajusz Balázs is itt hagyta a névjegyét ha már erre járt, szintén az Importáru-t ejtette el, de mászott 8A-t nemrég Fontainebleauból - de termelékenységéről a "héta mutató" is tanúskodhat: 46db bouldert mászott meg 7A-8A fokozat között...

"You climb at your own risk" is a mantra that is used in climbing but clearly that does not include broken anchors or anything like that in an indoor gym. In Sweden, the Consumer Government Agency has said that if a club points out some specific routes that are good for beginners to start leading, this can only be done on well protected safe routes. If it turns out that the novice falls to the ground although the belayer did nothing wrong, the club can be held responsible. With the big increase of gym climbers who want to go out and try leading for the first time, it is important that the local clubs and communities can recommend some safe routes, especially for teenagers. It might have been that previously all outdoor beginners knew that, "You climb at your own risk" but in 2017, there are probably thousands of gym climbers who just assume that the beginner routes are safely protected like in the gym. Here are the 8a bolting recommendations for easier routes: #1 at 3 meters #2 at 4 meters #3 at 5.5 meters #4 at 7.5 meters #5 at 10 meters If we are talking about very hard routes with a relatively much easier start, it is normally OK with longer distance in between the bolts. When it comes to clipping positions and grades, on a 6a route the clipping positions should be adjusted to 160 cm climbers meanwhile on an 8a route, 170 cm could be applicable.