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.

By looking on the complete overall ranking, we can see that several of the best girls did compete in all three disciplines. However, the only ones who made it into all finals Top-8's were Grace McKeehan (c) Eddie Fowke, who won the Overall title in Girls A and Elena Krasovskaia, who won in Girls B. Among the boys, none of the best climbers participated in all parts and in juniors, the winner, Mattias Erber, was #12, #18 and #35 in the three disciplines. In reality, if the best Lead and Boulder guys would just have climbed slowly in the Speed, the male podium would have been completely changed.

Planet Mountain reports that Adam Ondra and Hélène Janicot won the Duel competition at the 29th Arco Rock Master. The runner-ups were Sean McColl and Mathilde Becerra. 8 + 8 of the best Lead climbers in the world were invited to see who is the fatest in a Duel starting with a speed qualification. Later on, they competed in quarter final, semi and finals and it was also a great ending of the Youth World Championship. (c) Giulio Malfer Every year in Arco, the Duel is just a success and possibly it could be something that also IFSC could introduce. Surely, it is much funnier to see the best guys in the world speed climbing an 8a for a minute instead of watching some speed climbers climbing for around ten seconds on a 6b? Or maybe, both formats could be used.

Nika Potapowa was too young to compete in the Arco Youth World Championship but she went there anyway, and like last year, she did an 8b, Fuego. The tallented 12-year-old did also onsight her first 7c+, Herrtuna in Nassereith.

James Noble is having his best bouldering days ever in Rocklands and we could all learn from his classical comments. Golden Shadow 8B+: "Total mental war of attrition! Marc le menestral saw me on it and described my climbing as 'dancing on rock'. A little bit pleased." Armed Response 8B: "On the go I did it I pushed that hard I went deaf in one ear for the next few minutes. Poo also nearly came out."

Erik Grandelius seems to be in the best shape of his life, having onsighed two 8b's and done his first 9a, Cabane au Canada in Rawyl. "We spent two weeks in Switzerland. The first day I realized that I was in good shape as I surprised myself by falling at the chains on the onsight of Paradis Articifiel 8c. We stayed another two days in Rawyl but then it became to warm (even though it is at 2000 meters) so we went to Gastlosen for a week. When we came back I sent the Cabane au Canada the first day on the second try. Altogether I made six tries over three days. I feel that I have reached a deeper focus in my climbing, especially the last four days of the trip I dwelved into an almost meditative state as soon as a tied in, even on warm-ups. During the trip a was reading "Das Glasperlenspiel" by Herman Hesse and it made a great impression on my climbing. The great spiritual and intellectual discipline and the strong organization in the fictional Kastilien became an inspiration for me. I also feel that climbing hard in the alps also requires a great deal of organization and discipline as you have to time the weather, the resting, the nutrition and mental state perfectly.

96: Anak Verhoeven BEL - Bernhard Röck AUT 98: Janja Garnbret SLO - Sascha Lehmann SUI 00: Ashima Shiraishi USA - Sam Avezou FRA Complete results Both Ashima Shiraishi and Janja Garnbret did top out all four routes. Six countries did get one gold in Lead and USA with two silver was overall #1 ahead of Belgium and Slovenia with one silver. The big negative disappointment once again was Germany who did not get any youngsters in the final in both Lead and Boulder. Overall the Youth World Championship was a great success for IFSC and the organizer including the route setting team. It looks like a great future for competition climbing with the record of participants and this event will increase our possibilities to reach the Olympics.

Although Russia dominated the Speed event in the Youth World Championships in Arco, also USA, Iran, France and Poland got at least one silver. John Brosler from USA had the best time overall: 6.33. 96: Georgy Artamanov RUS - Patrycja CHUDZIAK POL 98: Kostiantyn PAVLENKO RUS - Elma FLEURET FRA 00: Petr ZEMLIAKOV RUS - Elisabetta DALLABRIDA ITA