Ramon Julian, the best competition climber in the world of the last 15 years, is having his best outdoor season ever. After five days of work, he made his third 9a FA, Cal Rubell in Catalonia. In total, the double world champion (who won his first WC in 2002 and this year got the European Champion title), has done 47 routes 9a and harder, out of which 16 are FAs.

Kinloch Mason Earle, one of the best crack climbers in the world, has done the FA of Woo goes to circus camp 8A+ in a "secret crag" in Moab. Instead of using a rope for protection, he constructed a net by weaving about 2 kilometers of rope and cord. It took some four days. "Its folded up in my attic now. I'll keep my eye out for more roof cracks to rig it under! I am obviously not the first person to try this, but this fall the idea got in my head. I realized that a long roof crack could be climbed with a net under you. I found a nice roof crack out in the desert- it's about 50 feet long and looked like the perfect spot for a net. It took me and a few friends 4 days to weave the net. 5,300 feet of cord! it took another full day to rig the net under the crack, it was some complicated rigging- mostly on trad gear. The crack turned out to be pretty tricky, probably 8a+. It was hard to project- once you fall, you have to start from the beginning. no hangdogging! The falls were scary at first, but once we realized it worked, it was like falling into a cloud. very comfortable"

Jan hojer completed three 8B's in addition to Toupie Carnivore assis in Fontainebleau, which he gave a personal grade of 8B+. Last year the 186 cm tall power house won the Boulder World Cup. In 2015, he was #2.

Niccolo Ceria has done the FA of Ziqquarat 8C and thus strengthened his leading position in the 8a ranking game. In total, the Italian has done 90+ boulders 8A and harder. Picture by his brother Rudy. "It was a great feeling to stand at the top of my biggest project of the year. Every climber who has been searching for a perfect horizontal roof knows how hard it is to find a 90° degrees angle with holds, instead of the typical blank and impossible cave. This roof definitively represents an exception for me, since the holds on the edge make the climbing possible, like the old classic Riverbed in Averstal, to make a clear example. This project took me days, efforts, patience and training; but I have been psyched in every single moment of the experience. Every time I failed I was really excited, since some positive points always came out in each attempt. The peculiarity is of course the perfect cut of the roof and (not visible for the photo) the technical and spicy final arete. The full sequence took me in total 9 days, 6 of them during 2015 and during my highest shape peaks. Probably my hardest so far, but I feel definitely more glad about the uniqueness of the boulder. Name chosen is "Ziqqurat" and it could be something around 8C range I guess.

Sebastian Cotting has done his first 8B+, From Shallow Waters to the Riverbed in Magic Wood. "I climbed Riverbed 8a+ in October 2014. The sitstart adds a 7C+ boulder, which made a huge difference for the whole line, at least for me. I needed around 15 sessions in total.

Here is the result of the poll "Who are your climbing heroes?" based on some 10 000 votes. 13 % Chris Sharma 12 % Adam Ondra 9 % Wolfgang Gülich 7 % Fred Nicole, Dave Graham 6 % Tommy Caldwell 5 % Nalle Hukkataival, Alex Megos, Alex Huber, Dani Andrada, Alex Honnold, Jimmy Webb 3 % Daniel Woods, Yuji Hirayama, Jan Hojer, Sean McColl In comparison to a similar poll from 2012, the major change is that especially Adam Ondra, Alex Megos, Tommy Caldwell, Jimmy Webb and Jan Hojer have got more votes this time. Kind of surprising that route climbers dominate. In total, 364 more names were also mentioned but none of them got more than 0.4 %. Actually many of the guys voted for are old heroes like Edlinger, Albert, Moon, Mofatt etc.

Alex Puccio has done Sitting Moon in Horsetooth giving it a personal grade of 8A. "I think this Boulder fit my body and style perfectly! All the others loged 8A+ on here, but I think it was my style. Definitely didn't have to try as hard in this climb as all other 8A+'s I have done. Fun day out with friends and the pup!!! :) Last year Alex was #2 in the World Championship but this year she got injured during the warming up in the Vail WC in June, which made her go through a surgery. Alex proves that sometimes you come back stronger after an injury due to getting a long recovery break. (c) Joel Zerr

Klätterdomen in Göteborg started with auto-belays some five years ago already and now they have seven of them. The biggest change is that they can let many more beginners try out climbing and organise many more kids birthday parties. You just have to clip the kid in next to yourself and then you can train next to your kid as long as you want. Making it easier to introduce climbing to children in early age will in a couple of years mean there will be many more kids coming to the crags looking for super easy routes. In Kalymnos, they are preparing for a kids invasion by bolting routes down to 2a.

The IFSC Provisional Calendar for 2016 has been presented and it seems the Boulder eight WC's, compared to five in 2015, involve more travelling than ever. Also for the Lead, eight events are planned and seven out of the eight will be held in Europe. Complete calendar 2016. Bouldering 16 April Switzerland 23 April Japan 30 April China 13 May India 20 May Austria 04 June Canada 09 June USA 12 August Germany 14 - 18 September World Championship Paris Lead 02 July Canada 10 July France 22 July France 31 July Switzerland 19 August Austria 26 August Italy 24 September Great Britain 08 October China 12 November Slovenia