Martin Stráník, who was #2 in the first WC, did not notice when the isolation for the semi started and was disqualified as he was four minutes late. "Sometimes shit happens...I was late in isolation for 4 minutes, come at 8.04, and all my thinks were just about that i am soooo stupid! I was just looking on provisional program and thought that there is no change for semis isolation time, because nothing was mentioned on meeting ....but provisional has changed..shit shit shit, I am sorry for all of you and now very angry on myself and sad."

Alexander Feichter has done the FA of The Walking Dead 9a in Pursteinwand, which is mainly a slab Climb with many Bouldery passages. In practice it is a 35-metre-long link-up of an 8c with an 8A+/B boulder crux and Feichter's third 9a. "The line is a mental killer, because there are so many Boulder parts on the slab where you can really fall on every move. Therefore you have to be very calm during the Ascent. After the ascent I was stunned happy that this project became reality. Slab climbing is a crazy thing. What I liked was the natural Gneis-Granit stone in this line. Normally I train exclusively force on my pull up board. Additionally, I'm practicing sometimes some indoor training in climbing halls but three-quarters of the training I'm doing at home with my own utilities."

We're thrilled to announce that the private beta for our new scorecard has been launched! The first 500 users on the mailing list got access today and we're expanding to more users soon. If you would like to get a beta invite, head over to the Beta website and sign up for the newsletter! First new features: - Full responsive redesign -- Designed for all devices ranging form mobile phones to desktop computers - New scorecard layout - New trend graph -- Stacked linegraph showing different types of ascents -- It is now possible to switch between points and number of ascents - Less page refreshes when using the scorecard - Less advertisements results and a more friendly user experience

Rustam Gelmanov, WC winner in 2012, won the great event in Kazo with excellent route setting and commentary. The big sensation was that the 20-year-old Michael Piccolruaz, who was #45 in the first event, got the silver after being #17 in the qually and second last into the semifinal. Interesting is also that nobody from the Top-8 in the first event made it to the final in Kazo. 1. Rustam Gelmanov RUS 3t3 4b4 2. Michael Piccolruaz ITA 2t2 4b8 3. Kokoro Fujii JAP 2t4 3b6 Complete results

Alex Megos has had some extremely productive days in Sweden. First he established the hardest graded problem in Sweden, Jon Assis 8B/+ in Focksta and did a handful of 8A's and harder. The last 2.5 days he has spent in Västervik where he has been amazed of the high quality of rock. In Västervik, he did 16 boulders 8A and harder including five 8B's. (c) Daniela Ebler

Jongwon Chon, who won the World Cup 2015, did not qualify for the Top-20 semifinal in the WC in Kazo in Japan. The same goes for Jorg Verhoeven, who was #3 in the first WC 2016. On the other hand, four relatively unknown Japanese boulderes made it. The semifinal starts at 2.30 Euro time. (c) Eddie Fowke

Previously, Chris Sharma has said that the Combined format suggested by IFSC for the Olympics "is a big shame".

Dave Macleod's blog from his ascent of Shallow Water from Riverbed 8B+ in Magic Woods.

Shallow Water to Riverbed 8B+ from Dave MacLeod on Vimeo.

Fabian Buhl, a worldclass boulderer and trad climber, spent three days by himself "hang-dogging" solo Alex Huber's 10 pitches of Wetterbock 8c in Austria. In reality, this ascent must have been one of the greatest challenges accomplished in the history of rock climbing. In practice, the 25-year-old, tied in a rope at the belay , just started to onsight the 8c using a modified Grigri to pull out rope. - You fix your rope on the belay, then feed the rope trough your self belay device and start climbing, its attached to your harness. It feeds pretty smooth, after about 20 m you need to get the rope weight to the wall, otherwise it will feed automatically and you have a lot of loose rope in the system. Then you climb to the belay, fix the rope, then rappel down, get the gear out. Jumar up and start the next pitch, so each pitch is a lot of effort, because you have to climb it twice I wanted a Challenge, I mean if you know the route from summer, you know holds and also the way between the bolts. For me it was all new beside some pics and a short clip and Alex said its nearly impossible, so I was sky! And I am really happy for the challenge, without him I would have never tried. When Alex Huber told me about his new line at the Wetterbockwand I was blown away as it offers steep bullet limestone, is very runout and in a pretty remote area. Months later, I started thinking about a possible solo winter ascent. I knew it was going to be very tough. Alex was skeptic about my idea, but supported me from the beginning. Along with him and Lukas, I explored the approach and stashed some gear near the wall. Not only the climbing is difficult, the steep snowy approach has a high risk of avalanches and takes about 4 hours. Most of it is possible on skis, but the last 350 vertical meters of the couloir are way to steep; it's an interesting mix of climbing and hip deep snow digging. But a full-on winter experience was exactly what I wanted. I was willing to go all in to realize my dream. As usual Alex's bolts were far apart, after the first bigger falls I started to trust my self-belay system again and did not care anymore. The only thing I worried about was the next belay, the air mile collection grew steadily. Sometimes I spend 40 min in the runout climbing back and forth, not knowing my way and trying to find the path of least resistance. Deicing holds with my free hand or cleaning snow from ledges. In the end luck was definitely on my side in some situations and I could realise the first repeat from the Wetterbockwand 8c at Hoher Göll North face. Waking up in the cold each day at 4:30 am and climbing until it got dark, was a new experience and it felt good to see how my body works in such a situation. I was 100% focused at all times and felt confident, I did not question any decision I made and never felt tired. Only after reaching the save trail to the car, the adrenaline dropped and I was overcome by a crazy fatigue.