NEWS

8b+ by Lluc Maciร  Llobet (11) and Alberto Gines (13)
Lluc Maciร , and Alberto Gines have done Falconeti 8b+ in Montsant. Eleven year old, Lluc (in the picture) is the son of the famous trainer, David Macia. "I love that my father is my coach too, so he can give me advice to outside training. We train with organic method, short time and at a very high intensity." For Alberto, 13, it was his third 8b+ and here is a video interview with him. Overall, it actually seems the Spanish youngsters are the best in the world on rock now.

Most of us give up and say "take" or jump down instead of trying the hard moves that feel insecure. If you could get rid of this guy in your ear whispering "impossible" you would immediately climb 2 - 4 grades harder. With some mental training you would also experience climbing as Ondra and Sharma and climb harder as well as get more adrenaline. 1. Start by asking a good friend if he/she could help you with some mental training. 2. This training partner should have a more convincing voice compared to your inner whispering guy saying, "give up". 3. Ask your partner to create hard flash Bouldering circuits, which you will do with their fingertips on your back. The training mode is that you are a robot that DOES NOT THINK. You just execute the moves your partner tells you to do sometimes with support on your back. Once the first "impossible" move has been done the adrenaline will kick in and you will experience climbing like Ondra and Sharma. By actively doing some mental training like this, your inner negative voice will go to sleep and you will climb harder and have more fun...

More credit to Kyparissi
G.Chaziris has visited Kyparissi and written a very positive article. - Kyparissi is really, REALLY amazing. The place is secluded and beautiful, the surrounding nature is spectacular and as scenic as it gets, and the rock is top notch. In addition the locals (and most importantly the local authorities) are friendly disposed towards climbing. Everything looks great.

9b again by Jakob Schubert
Jakob Schubert reports on Facebook with a great picture by ยฉ Elias Holzknecht/ WOODSLAVE productions, "LA PLANTA DE SHIVA! After the biggest fight of my life I managed to clip the anchor of this amazing 9b in Villanueva del Rosario. 2nd Ascent after Adam Ondra. Super happy and proud to have send this one, my hardest route so far. Time for fiesta!" Jakob has been the best male lead competition climber in the world since 2010 and in 2011 he won seven events straight. He also won overall in 2014 and last year he was #3. The Austrian is the fourth climber after Ondra, Sharma and Andrada to have done two 9b's. Here is a new Podcast. "The process was actually rather special and I learned a lot about trying something that hard. The first few days on the route were pretty frustrating and I felt like I'm not strong enough for this route. I think it's the hardest route I have ever tried and because the rock is so special on the 9b part it's very difficult to find the right beta and can take a lot of time. I kind of gave up on the route and climbed some easier ones for some days, but since it didn't get out of my head, I returned with more motivation and a better mindset and suddenly made a lot of progress. The send was epic, I almost fell at the second to last move and fought super hard to reach the last hold. Really happy and proud of this one. 2016 I will only do the Lead season (+BWC in Innsbruck) mostly because I want to have more time to climb outside until spring. I will fly to Hueco for 3 weeks beginning of February and after we have a 10 day training camp with the national team in Fontainebleau and in Andalusia. After that I'm not sure about my plans yet, but I really want to go back to Flatanger since it's such an amazing place and I would really love to try 'Move'.

8b+ (c) by Hannah Schubert (18)
Hannah Schubert, double youth world champion, has done El gran blau 8b+ (c) in Oliana. The 18-year-old is Jakob Schubert's younger sister. In 2015, she participated in the Lead WC three times and her worst result was #19.

8b+ onsight by Hugo Parmentier (17)
hugo parmentier has been on a trip to Siurana, where he managed to onsight Kale borroka 8b+. His previous best onsight was an 8a! In the Youth World Championship in Arco, Hugo got the bronze in both Lead and Boulder.

Dalmatia a new potential Mecca
Jernej Kruder, runner up in the Boulder World Championship 2014, has made a report with many great pictures from his bolting expedition to Dalmatia in Croatia. - Dalmatia is a bit different from Spain or Misja pec. There are not so many big sectors but if you drive along the coast, you have walls on every kilometer.Pretty much all of them you can see from the road. Now the main thing was Vrulja which you see in the pictures and where there are many caves. Now there are three projects and there is place for some harder things as well.