Many have said that Sean McColl is the favorite to win the gold in Tokyo 2020 as he has won many Combined titles and as he has been competing in Speed for so many years. The first challenger, beside Adam Ondra, could be Stefano Ghislofi who is currently the Italian Champion in 2010 and is 17 years old, at 7.96. Video The Italian has also won two Italian Cups in bouldering as well as being in one WC final in 2014. "I do not plan to start training Speed until the Italian Federation prepares some training. My focus is climbing on rock besides the Lead World Cup and I think I could be as fast as in 2010 without so much training. I have not been thinking about it that much but I hope I do not need to sacrifice any outdoor climbing until the last year before Tokyo." The dilemma for all the guys with Olympic ambitions that do not have any previous Speed background is that they will sacrifice outdoors. Most likely, the Speed training will actually make you drop some in your Boulder and Lead performance, and that can create anxiety. The guys who ultimately will perform the best will probably be the climbers who do not need to train Speed to qualify. They can just continue as normal and start focusing hard on Speed just some months before the Olympic event. It just might be very hard to mentally start training Speed now and understand that you might perform worse in comps and outdoors for three straight years, just to have the chance to get a medal in 2020.

Christof Rauch, who the last three years has done more than 300 boulders 8A and harder has had a new strike. During the last week, he has done twelve 8A to 8B+, half of them FAs. Just during the last seven months, the full time electrician has done ten 8B+. "Yesterday I checked out a possible extension into my new 8B+, see picture, which is about 8A on its own. It's a really cool and supertricky crack with a little feet first double toe hook section. Freaky! I think this thing will definitely get the 8C. There are a lot of other projects around 8A-8B+ in this area as well. Beside that I don't have any hard projects at the moment. But if the weather is fine I'll maybe go for a week to Switzerland at the beginning of May." When it comes to doing multiple hard boulders, the 22 year old Austrian is probably #1 in the world. Interestingly, he got his first free climbing shoes this year. In total, Christof has done 445 boulders 8A and harder. The 8a member who has done the most 8A and harder is Paul Robinson with more than 800 listed.

Stefano Ghisolfi has moved to Arco mainly in order to have more hard core routes to do. Previously he lived in Torino and but there he ran out of routes even if he spent over an hour in the car. In Arco there are projects as close as five minutes from his apartment and if you drive an hour there are at least a dozen open projects. This Easter, Alex Megos and Adam Ondra tried some of the open projects in this future potential hard core mecca. On the picture, Stefano is working "One Punch" which probably will be Arco's second 9a+. Just to the right of it, Adam Ondra is projecting an estimated 9b.

Adam Ondra has opened Arco's first 9b by doing the FA of Queen Line located in an ex-dry tooling crag with two more projects. "17 moves of super hard intense pinching, crimping and drop-knees, into an easier finish. Quite hard 9b for sure, but probably only the harder finish breaks into 9b+. 4 days of work this trip, a few goes three yrs ago. Stefano Ghisolfi is working a 9a+ and comments. (c) Matteo Pavana "At the half of the wall of Queen line there is a small rest and then right after an easy top out. If you go straight after the rest it adds an 8c and that is the King line." Directly afterwards, Adam moved to Masone where he repeated Ghisolfi's 100 moves 9a+ Ultimatum. "Icing on the cake after Queen Line." Read more on Ondra's Instagram with 100 000 followers. In total, Adam has now done 17 routes 9b or harder which can be compared with the runner up, Chris Sharma, who has done eight. Then there are three guys who have done two: Stefano Ghisolfi, Jakob Schubert and Alex Megos.

Alberto Gines has had a very productive week in Margalef having onsighted two 8a's and two 8a+', including Man of Steel, which many think are 8b. The 14 year old also redpointed Flash Over 8b+. He was also close to doing Fish eye 8c in Oliana, which would have been his third 8c. "It felt very good, I fell four moves from the top three times."

Alex Puccio has had yet another amazing day doing an 8B, 8A, 7C+ and a 7C flash in Leavenworth. (c) Joel Zerr of The tea cup 8B. "Wow.... had the most AMAZING first day EVER in Leavenworth! This place is BEAUTIFUL!! This line took me a couple hours or less. Sent Coffee Cup, Abstraction, The Practitioner and the Tea Cup all on my first day here, psyched for the rest of the trip!!!" The runner up in the Boulder World Championship 2014, is also runner up in the 8a ranking game. In total, the 27 year old has done 139 boulders 8A to 8B+, including four flashes which makes her the best overall female boulderer. In 2017, she plans to do the Boulder WC in Vail and Munich beside Arco Rockmaster and Adidas Rockstar. In the long run, she might also go for the Olympics. The next day she did one 7C+ and Monarch 8A on her second go, "Another good day in the woods. Should have been a rest day since my skin and body felt wrecked, but apparently the rain is coming tonight so forced rest day tomorrow! This place is amazing!!! :)"

David Firnenburg, who was #6 in the last Boulder WC, has done Chris Sharma's Practice of the Wild in Magic Wood giving it a personal 8B+ grade. "If I compare POTW with New Base Line for example I would say they are the same challenge more or less. Though, POTW didn't feel like a real 8C to me. Not like this significant step towards another higher level compared to the other 8B+'s I've done in the past. I really want to be convinced by the difficulty of a climb to call it my first 8C boulder." Last year, the full time psychology University student got the bronze in the Combined World Championship and the 21 year old is going for the Olympics. He also plans to do most of the World Cups in 2017. In the 8a Combined ranking game, the German is #6. "Bouldering and Lead work well. Slowly improving in every area in trainings. I started to train speed as well but need to integrate it more into trainings. My personal best last year was around 8,5 seconds." (c) Eddie Fowke