Ed Fowke from The Circuit Climbing Magazine reports from the Psiocobloc comp in Milano. - Going away from the first Psicocomp I have attended I’m left with the belief that there is a place for this format on the World stage. Growing it into a series will for sure bring the crowds and taking to public places like Milano will grow the profile of the event immensely! The best way to describe a competition like this is to say “just watch the highlights reel” which will be coming soon. The racing was fast and frenetic starting with some great match ups in the ladies field where any of the top 3 of Juliane Wurm, Mathilde Becerra and Claudia Ghisolfi looking capable of the win. Indeed Juliane won her semi against Claudia by nanoseconds before having to do it all again in the finals, just edging Mathilde in the closing metres. In the end it came down to some crazy races to split the field. Sean’s come from behind semi win over home favorite Stefano Ghisolfi was unbelievable, he seemed to fly through the last 2 metres snatching victory at the very top. Stefano went on to secure bronze in the event beating rising American star Nathaniel Coleman in another hard fought race which was impossible to split until the final moves. Then it was the big show, Jan versus Sean, Boulderer vs All-rounder, Tall vs Short, who would be the champion. In the end even running his best time of the weekend with a sizzling 35 second pass Sean couldn’t deny the Big German who threw down a simply ridiculous 32 second pass to seemingly levitate his way to victory!" 8a has for some years now kept saying that IFSC should take up this format and make a World Cup out of it and possibly also make it Olympic. Psicobloc could as a matter of a fact, make something of the kind of a mixture of Lead, Boulder and Speed format. What do you think?

Jan hojer reports on Facebook, "Double victory for Jule (Wurm) and me at the DWS comp in Milano. It was a great event and so special for me to compete against the legend Chris Sharma and all the other great climbers!" #2 Mathilde Becerra & Sean McColl #3 Claudia & Stefano Ghisolfi

David Firnenburg, #2 after Adam Ondra in the Combined ranking game, has done Underground 9a in Arco suggesting that it might be easier. Here is new released video portrait including his brother Ruben. "8c+/9a. Had to get back into lead shape after a lot of bouldering lately. Great roof climbing with challenging boulder in the lower part. Red point crux at the end though. Fell once right below the anchor but sent it right afterwards :-) Have heard that the side pull (where you jam your left pinkie) in the end got better. Can't really prove that because I don't know how it was before. Meanwhile very polished too.

Alex Megos reports on Facebook, "First day out in the Frankenjura again after my Norway trip and straight away sent a project and making the first ascent of "Hockenheimring" 11- (8c)! After the FA I still managed to flash another 8c in the and climbed as well a harder variation of that 8c Dr. Best making it 8c/+ Dr. Best+. Sad to see that there is some Sika in the route to create unnecessary holds...

Adam Ondra has added another 20 climbsand some interesting comments to his scorecard including 1 670 ascents, from his recent trips to Flatanger and Arco. The hardcore hightlights were two 9a's FA in Flatanger, Brunhilde low start and Witchhammer. "A new line bolted by Adam Pustelnik...Really fun climbing, different sections with rests in between, never easy. Flatanger at its best." The double world champion from 2014 visited also Hell, some two hours south from Flatanger by the Trondheim airport, where, among other things, he did the last project giving it 8c+ based on an interesting ethical comment. "The climbing is 8c, but clipping the 2nd bolt adds the grade." The film producer Petr Pavlíček was with Adam and says Adam had also bolted some new lines one out of which includes the biggest dyno ever and it comes after a 9a route. Adam Ondra story of Change 9b+ from 2012.

The interest in speed climbing of the media and the climbers is extremely low. Sure, IFSC makes some participate in order to win prize money or to get an overall ranking but why not upgrade Speed events from vertical 6a's to steep 7a's? The Duel speed climbing in Arco is a great success every year but as you need to clip every second meter and the difficulty is 7c, it is in fact rather slow. Imagine how much more fun it would be to see the Adam Ondra to go footless on steep sections for about ten moves on a 7a route? Such a format could also help us to get into the Olympics and it would also be interesting to train for it in order to climb better in Lead comps. Such a 7a steep speed climbing would be carried out on about 12 meter high walls, where you need to unclip maybe two carabiners. What do you think?

Silvio Reffo has done the second ascent of Super circo Abusivo 9a at Paline, which was bolted and done FA of by Berni Rivadossi one year ago. Here Reffo has made a summer summary. (c) Climbing Technology.

Loic Zehani has done Mavericks, which is his second 8c+ in Orgon in last two weeks. Video. His father Christophe (41) did the FA last weekend. - The first part is a burly 8b+ bolted by Pierre Legrand and Thierry Legallée twenty years ago and after the rest you join an route bolted last spring by Olivier Bert.

During the Youth World Champions, several hundred juniors tested their finger strength and the winner were the Harold Peeters and Brooke Raboutou who actually got the best female result ever. What is very interesting is that the Zlagboard actually seems to be a good measurement to see who has the strongest fingers among lighter climbers. Most of the highest ranked are in between 45 - 60 kg.