Extremely technical problems in the male semifinal with very few top outs. The World Cup winner qualified by doing just one problem. But once again, the commentary misled the audience by saying that Tomoa had to top the last problem to make it into the Final. Once the Japanese had gotten the bonus in the right number of attempts, they continued to say a bonus was actually enough but we did not know how many he used. Tomoa needed three attempts and he would have made it to the final if he had used five! Please IFSC, it has been like this for the whole season and now we have commentary misleading the audience in World Championships in a sport going for the Olympics! It is noteworthy that only one of the Top-6 in the qualification made it to the Final and this guy was #6. Complete results.

Complete results.

All the big female names topped both routes in the qualifications; Janja Garnbret, Jain Kim, Jessica Pilz, Mina Markovic, Anak Verhoeven and Magdalena Röck. If they have identical results in both semi and final, the ranking is established basing on who climbs fastest in the final. (c) Eddie Fowke

Planet Mountain has written a nice article in regards that today passes 25 years since Wolfgang Güllich did the FA of Action Direct. Previously, Wolfgang had done the world's first 8b, 8b+ and 8c between 1984 and 1987. In 1990, Ben Moon did the first 8c+ and in 1991, Güllich put up Action Direct giving it XI in the UIAA scale, which was 8c+/9a converted to the French and global scale. Milan Sykora had originally bolted it coming in from the right and later Wolfgang added a more direct start, hence the name. The FA came on the scene after just eleven days but Wolgang had spent numerous days on the campus board, which he invented in 1988, to get used to all the one and two finger pockets. What is not so known and makes the story even more impressive is that Wolgang did use the most direct sequence, which is believed to be harder, since almost all repeaters have opted for the right-side version. In total, AD has been repeated 19 times and in fact, as many top climbers had tried it without success, some, 8a among them, started to say it should be upgraded. In 2001, we made this official calling it a benchmark 9a when it had had just two repeats in ten years. Later, this made Alex Huber upgrade some of his routes as earlier he had based their grading on the assumption that AD was 8c+/9a. Today, due to the grade inflation, Ben Moon's Hubble from 1990 is thought to be the world's first 9a and AD is considered to be hard for the grade.

In Lead qualifications the coaches can quite easily estimate when the athletes are going to start as they just calculate the average time of the first starters. During the Lead qualifications in Paris, the organizer delayed the last competitors in order to have people climbing during the whole period of scheduled time. Several coaches protested saying that they could not tell their athletes when to start warming up etc. Sean McColl was one of the guys who had to wait one hour extra.

During the second day of the World Championships in Paris, we did not see any sensational results for the Male Lead and Female Bouldering. Four male of each group topped both qualification routes excluding Domen Skofic and Gauthier Supper. Complete results. Among the female, Akiyo Noguchi and Miho Nonaka, both from Japan, won each group. Complete results.

The World Championship starts with the Male Boulder and Female Lead Qualifications on Wednesday. On Thursday, the opposite disciplines take place. Then from 16th to 18th, semi and final are live streamed. Here is the result from the 8a poll regarding who will become the World Champion. 34% Adam Ondra 24% Tomoa Narasaki 11% Jan Hojer, 8% Jongwon Chon, 6% Kokoro Fujii There are a total of 533 athletes registered in all categories and IFSC has published a short interview with Janja Garnbret. Here you can follow the updated results from the male boulder qualifications. It seems the route setters did find the perfect level.

There were 123 participants in the Boulder World Championship qualification and the route setters found a good level even though ten guys did not get any bonuses. All favorites made it to the Top-20 semifinal but Hojer, Sharafutdinov, Coleman and Stranik. Complete results. Alban Levier onsighted all five problems and Tomoa Narasaki won the other group by doing the five great Boulders in nine tries.

Father and son have won the Great Wall festival in Brazil, in Espirito Santo state, near Pedra Riscada, the Brazilian Paradise, from where endless possibilities of new climbing routes arise. On a 630 meters wall there was born a route called "Spirit of the Gerais", check out the full story of this adventure on Edemilson Padilla and Ian Padilha’s blog

Daniel Martian, who started climbing in 1988 and did his first 8b+ in 2003, has done his first 8c by the FA of Tour de Lion in Lion's head. "Link-up between Maxi Pista and Lion's Head Express but mega-good!!! Some of the best steep rock and movement at LH. Tentatively rated .14b but it will need to be confirmed. Started to work on it 4 seasons ago but "seriously" committed the last two seasons. Lots and lots of tries until I brought this beautiful stone down to my level."