Balázs Kovács started climbing in 1996 being 25 years old, when they opened one of the very first climbing gyms in Hungary. He started training and climbing more seriously some years later, and became successful on 7C Boulders and 8a Routes while working as an electrician and being a father of two girls. At the age of 43, he did his very first 7C+ Boulder and he is still progressing. In this picture, you can see him on one of his hardest projects, an 8b+, and he is very close on it.

Having done seven 8B+'s, out of which four were FAs,Matt Fultz has done his first 8C, The Wheel of Wolvo in Mt Evans. "Wow, such an amazing boulder! Sent in 5 days over the course of a week. Definitely my style and so much fun to work on! New beta may make it easier, but we will see what other repeaters think." Interestingly, the 25-year-old has had six years of continuous progress and he is currently #8 in the 8a ranking game.

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Fanatic climbing reports that Genesis, a very sandbagged 8b in La Balme, with just three ascents in ten years, has been chipped this summer, which added six newly drilled holds. It was Mathieu Bouyoud who found that it was chipped and then he forwarded his critical thoughts. Some 25 years ago, it was quite popular to chip routes in France. A good example are most of the hard core routes in Gorges du Loup, which have drilled holds. 8a has been active trying to stop chipping and you can even mark chipped routes in the scorecard. Hopefully, FAs do not want to be on that list and actually Adam Ondra has been active reporting chipped routes. Another way of stopping chipping could be for topo authors to mark them them as chipped, just next to the FA name. 8a also try to avoid reporting chipped ascents. It should be emphasised that chipping an old and climbable route is probably as low as you can reach in the terms of climbing ethics.

Illya Bakhmet-Smolenskyi arrived to Podzamcze some two weeks ago with a personal best of 8b. There he first did an 8b+ and yesterday he stepped up by doing Pijane trójkąty 8c. - I found a best place for me to climb. Almost every crag, rock and route are mostly vertical, with small holds and balancy moves, that's my favorite style of climbing. But even when the rock is like my style it is still very hard to send this line. It is long, pumpy and has three cruxes all over the line, so I did maximum two tries a day. At first two days I did only one try though. His mother, Ann, explains that Illya started climbing some four years ago but he has never had any trainers beside his parents, who climb in the 6th grade. Most of the times, Illya climbs outdoor as his parents normally work with IT and travel abroad. In 2014, he won Arco Rock Junior being 9 years old, when he also did his first 8a+.

The video starts with the amazing Speed final where 166 cm Marcin Dzienski beats 190 cm tall Danyil Boldyrev with 5 split seconds. Check those feet!

Fanatic Climbing reports that Seb Bouin has done the FA of L'homme demain 9a/+ in Verdon, meaning that he has done 27 routes graded 9a to 9b. "The route was bolted by Antonin Rhodes. It's the hardest route of the crag, which now hosts four 9th-grade challenges. The route is 50 meters long, a stamina monster that Seb describes as an 8c+ followed by an 8c in the steepest part of the wall." Photo : Jan Novak Photography

Anak Verhoeven and Romain Desgranges were the only two who topped out the semifinal and so they started last in the final, they really pleased the crowd. Anak topped out her fourth straight route in Arco and Romain tied Jakob Schubert's result, winning after the countback. The previous superior leaders overall, Janja Garnbret and Domen Skofic were #3 and #4 meaning that the leader board was tightened up. Adam Ondra did his first WC in 2016 and he said he needed to adopt to plastic again. In three weeks, the World Championship in Paris starts. (c) More great pics from Eddie Fowke. 1. Romain Desgranges 44+ : Anak Verhoeven Top 2. Jakob Schubert 44 + : Jain Kim 49+ 3. Dimitrii Fakiryanov 42 : Janja Garnbret 29+ 4. Domen Skofic 39+ : Methilde Becerra 29 5. Adam Ondra 39+ : Mina Markovic 27 Complete results

Planet Mountain reports that Adam Ondra and Katharina Saurwein won the Arco KO Boulder contest. Actually, Katha had the best result on all four problems meanwhile Adam only won on the final Boulder. Runner-ups were Jan Hojer and Giorgia Tesio followed by Jeremy Bonder and Stasa Gejo. (c) Giulio Malfer

Planet Mountain reports that Adam Ondra and Janja Garnbret won the 30th edition of the Arco Rock Master, which was held in a Duel format. Climbers climb on the same route competing one against the other.