NEWS

Desgranges & Verhoeven winners in the perfect show in Arco
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

Ondra and Saurwein win Arco KO Boulder
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

Ondra and Garnbret winners of Arco Rock Master in Duel
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.

Dreamcatcher 9a in one day by Alex Megos
Alex Megos continues his rampage in Canada and does Chris Sharma's Dreamcatcher 9a in just one day, video, and he comments on Facebook. "This was the only route I knew when I came to Canada! And today I grabbed the 4th ascent of it in one day! "Deamcatcher" 5.14d (9a)!!! Super stoked to have climbed this world class route! One of the best of all time!" (c) Ken Etzel

Andrada and Markovic get the Arco Awards
Planet Mountain reports that Dani Andrada won the Salewa Rock Award and Mina Markovic won the La Sportiva Competition Award in the Arco Legends of fame. (c) Giulio Malfer Dani Andrada (41) is the legend that has bolted most hard core routes in the world and it is mainly thanks to him that the crags around Lleida have been the hardcore epicentrum of the world. Previously and since 2006, the Awards have been given based on the last year performances but clearly, they changed it in order to not give Adam Ondra his fifth award. The Czech has done many more hard routes compared to Andrada as well as bolting at least last year.

16 double tops in Arco - Semi Live at 12 and Final at 20
In contrast to Imst last weekend with only two double tops in the qualifications, nine male and seven female topped both routes in Arco, including Adam Ondra who did his debut in the WC 2016. Here is a video from Arco where he talks about what he has been up to lately. Qualification results. The only two top climbers who also go for the Speed, Charlotte Durif and David Firnenburg, qualified as #23 and #30 respectively. Charlotte had also the best result being #24 out of 29 in the Speed with 10.54. Live-streaming of the Semi starts at 12. The Speed final starts at 18.15 and the Lead Final 20.00.

Two 8a+ onsights by Jan Vopat (13)
Jan Vopat has onsighted Mal Amores and Montserrat, both 8a+, in Rodellar, meaning that during the last two weeks the 13-year-old has onsighted six routes graded 8a to 8b. In the 8a ranking game, The Czech is #1 among the 14-year-olds and #13 in the overall junior ranking.

The normal solution for calculating who should win the gold in Sport Climbing Combined would be to sum up the results from all three disciplines. This is also more or less how they do it in disciplines such as decathlon and triathlon - in terms no extra credit being given to the winner of one discipline. However, if IFSC stick with the actual scoring system that is adapted to 20 athletes, this is how it could look like: #1 = 100, #2 = 75, #3 = 60, #4 = 50... and #20 = 1. In practice, this would mean that the best guys like Adam Ondra would most probably get the Olympic gold if they win one discipline and take the third place in the other, at the same time being dead last in Speed. Measured by points they would get 161 points and so beat a guy being #4 in all three disciplines, as that person only gets 150 points. Basing on the more logical ranking score, Ondra would get 24 points clearly beating the triple fourth guy getting only 12 ranking points. It would be a bit peculiar about the point method that in fact until the qualifications are over, it would be more or less meaningless for all Boulder and Lead climbers to practice Speed. The reason for this is that the normal Speed climbers will anyhow most certainly get all high scores in that discipline. Once the qualifications are over, some of the 20 qualified may focus on Speed as winning that event in combination with just one Top-10 position, could actually give you an Olympic medal at some 120 points. An alternative to the scoring system, giving more or less the same results, would be to multiply the rankings in the three disciplines as it is done in Lead WC flash qualifications.