James Webb has done Dave Grahams beautiful Big Paw 8B+ (C) in Chironico. "Psyched! Last session I had a heart breaker slipping off the final moves. Took it down this time first go of the day. Absolutely incredible FA from Dave. Cheers mate!" During the first week, James has done another four 8B and harder and flashed Baby Mammoth 8A+ (B). James will stay in Europe until May 20th. How do you like the trip so far? I love it. This is an absolutely gorgeous place.. and the climbing is equally amazing. All of the difficult boulders here in Ticino I have my eyes on because basically all of them are world class. For now the weather is a bit warm but at least it's not raining. So we can't complain

Alfons Dornauer did two 8B+ in one session in Zillertal last week, Nussknacker and Traumschiff (see the nice picture). Interesting is that the 20 year old at the same time he is sending hard boulders is training also endurance and is getting close on an old 9a project. How is it possible to combine world class bouldering and projecting a long route at the same time? "I think one of the most important thing in climbing is to have a good max power. It makes no sense to have endurance if you are not able to do the single moves in a route. So my training is also very focused on max power, and one day per week I try to climb some routes. Furthermore I do some longer boulders in the gym. I think to climb hard routes on the rock is more about getting used to the moves and try to find a good tactic. (c) Heidorn-Foto

Based on official statistics from Alexa.com we can see that three out of our four main competitors, have dramatically dropped in the world wide web ranking during the last 6 months. At the same time 8a has significally moved upwards in the ranking and during the last three months, 8a is the #1 in the trend ranking. Another interesting fact is that all the other big four, at least 60 % of their visitors, come from their country of origin, which can be compared to 8a, where the visitors are evenly spread out around the globe. When it comes to traffic from search engines and Facebook, 8a is also unique as most of our visitors come to www.8a.nu directly. The country specific pages that grow the most are Italy and Spain. We are looking for more local editors, [email protected]

The Climbing Works International Festival (The CWIF) returns this weekend for its 8th year. The CWIF is a unique bouldering competition as the qualifiers is a 30 bloc open event which means anyone can enter. Among the 350 participants are many celebrities like; Megos, Gelmanov, Moroni, La Neve, Markovic, Coxsey and Wujastyk. The Semi's (12pm GMT) & Finals (6pm GMT) will be webcasted More Info at: Climbingworks (c) Alex Messenger Most of the competitors are staying on after the competition so it will be interesting to see what occurs on the Peak District Gritstone and UK Limestone in the following days.

James Webb has had yet another amazing day in Chironico where he did Insanity of Grandeur for which he gives a personal 8B+ grade. "8C in a day sounds dope but for me personally I think this one sits more in the 8B+ realm... one of the most amazing climbs I've done! This one is a really nice endurance style problem using all kinds of crazy beta." The best flash boulderer in the world did also flash two 8A+, Delusions of Grandeur (originally 8B) and Cat on a thin roof low which some would consider as an onsight as he did it without any beta at all. Here is an recent nice interview we found on the internet. His girlfriend Kasia Pietra, also had a great day doing her sixth 8A, The Arete With the Pocket. "She is killin it :)

Toru Nakajima, who has previously done two 8C's, recently did The Story of Two Worlds, 8C in Cresciano, although it had almost 20 degrees. In total it took him seven sessions. He will stay in Europe for two more weeks. " I think there are not same type boulder in the world and I am glad to do such a boulder. Amazing!

Mateo Laporte has had a very good trip to Geyik Bayiri where he onsighted six 8a and harder including Olympos Games 8b. In 2012, Mateo was #6 in the European Championship.

Paul Robinson who has set up a dozen 8B+ and harder around the world says that Red Rocks could be another mecca also for hard core bouldering. His latest 8B+ FA there is Trieste, see picture by Devlin G. "The line is one of the coolest boulders I have ever climbed. It is almost 7 meters tall and has both a hard overhanging section and a technical slab at the top that is committing and scary. The beginning is the crux and requires a lot of power but also has bad slippery feet that are hard to keep on! It's kind of like Australia. There are all these different valleys and you have to explore them all to find the best rock. It's a pretty sick place. A lot of potential. Just gotta search for it. In the end of his Red Rocks video, he has some great footage of this amazing problem.