Bouldering is getting more popular and nowadays there are almost no hard core guys who just do routes. This has dramatically increased the number of FA 8A and harder the last years and probably it is anyhow just the beginning. Although we have seen a nice boulder community progress when it comes to grades up to 8C, the progress can best be measured by the quickness of the ascents. It seems we see less long time projecting and instead the boulderes more enjoy doing variety of hard boulders. A further explanation to this is of course all the great videos out there. Another trend is that fewer of the hard FA and repeated boulders, lately, are slightly overhanging challenging the closed crimp. The good reason for this is of course that an 8B vertical is more painful than a steep one. Actually, the trend is doing steep rounded or arete boulders more challenging the open crimp or open hand position like on Meadow Lark Lemmond 8B+ in Red Rocks. Paul Robinson put up the great boulder in 2012 and the last four months we have seen at least eight repeats including Jakob Schubert's on the picture.

IFSC has presented the full 2014 WC Calender including 8 Lead and Boulder Events. The Boulder World Championships will take place in Munich in August, Lead in Gijon in September and Youth in New Caledonia in September (New dates). Further more, Sport Climbing will be showcased at the 2014 Youth Olympic Games in China in August.

More than 500 crags and sector topos are now possible to down load in the 8A.nu Topo App available both for IPhones and Android. Here is the link to create more Left-to-Right Topos. Try it out, it just takes like 10-15 minutes to sort a crag/sector with 50 climbs. We can also provide you with a special log-in in order to first do some spell checking, merging routes and add more sectors to a crag. Everyone who spend a couple of hours will get an 8A La Sportiva T-shirt.

Adam Ondra is known for resting extremely long in between attempts although he should have a very good blood circulation in his forearms, getting out the lactic acid faster than most. At the same time, you often hear about top climbers who climb and perform seven days in a row especially in bouldering, if your skin is OK. In general, the better trained and the more years you have climbed, the less you need to rest. The simple rule is that you do not need to rest as long as your performance is not dropping. Once the performance goes down you need to rest longer in between attempts or having a rest day. In other words, a boulderer need to rest less compared to a route climber who always fights with lactic acid. Once you have become super pumped you probably have just one or two good attempts left that day and after several burns, a rest day is needed. It is also important to understand, especially for the less experienced, that resting more will reduce the risk of injuries.

Climbers Against Cancer and John Ellison won the "Winners" award of Social awareness at ISPO. In just 12 months, CAC has raised 230 000 Euro out of which 40 000 have already been donated to research facilities in Australia, France and Canada. Here is a new 8a interview with founder John Ellison. "CAC is totally a non profit organisation and every penny raised goes towards the fundraising efforts. No one is paid and no money is used for any of the administration. Anyone who helps with the project does so on a voluntary basis (myself included) and quite often at a cost to themselves.

Adam Ondra has done Chris Sharma's First Round, First Minute 9b in Margalef which took him 9-10 days. "Next is some unfinished business in Finestra (also Margalef) and than we are moving further...close to Oliana," says photographer (c) Vojtech Vrzba." Henning Wang did film the ascent. Interview at PlanetMountain. Like previous years, Adam took three weeks off from climbing during Christmas break and after that he has been training for three weeks and arrived to Margalef 25/1. They will return to Czech Republic 12/2 so another week to go before picking up his University studies. In 2014, Adam will do some Boulder WC's and the whole Lead circuit.

Katharina Saurwein has done her seventh 8A+, Lethal Design in Red Rocks. "After figuering out the beta and trying it for three days, I managed to climb 'Lethal design', a beautiful, crimpy power endurance problem. First 8a+ of the season." Last year Katharina was #6 in the Boulder WC after having been Top-10 in all the eight WC's. The Austrian has been a successful competition climber since 2002 and in 2006 she won the Youth World Championship and in 2008, she won a Lead WC. In 2014, she will do all Boulder WC's.

Piotr Schab has had two great days in Margalef where he has done Pal Este giving it a personal upgrade to 8c+ as it took him 25 tries over three trips. Later he onsighted El Figurin 8a+ and La Trencatranques giving the latter a personal grade of 8a+, "Too many good holds for an 8b." The 17 year old is #2 in the ranking game. The pic by Piotr Bunsch is from La Cabane au Canada 9a.

The dates for the Youth World Championship in New Caledonia has been changed from 15-18 August to 20-24 September. This means that most kids will need to take 1.5 week vacation from school, but if the event instead of a Saturday starts on a Tuesday, the kids just need five days leave. There is of course a risk that the 1.5 week vacation, 30 h travelling, a cost of at least Euro 2 000 and competing, as well as returning back to school, jet-legged will reduce the number of participants. The best thing would of course be to keep the original dates as this would mean that most would make a longer trip to also have time for some exciting holidays, no vacation needed and no disturbing jet leg while competing or returning back to school. It is strange that no reasons have been given, beside it was a suggestion from the French Federation, why the dates were changed and especially why they did not start on a Tuesday as this would have meant a shorter leave from school.

Silvio Reffo