Staša Gejo, bronze in the World Championship in 2018, has during a three weeks trip to Rocklands done five boulders 8A to 8B, including three possible First Female Ascents. There is a video coming out soon. (c) Matthias Woidneck

The Arch 8B: "Soft, took me only 2 sessions, but very very beautiful! I like lowballs, what can I say..." Mooiste Meisie 8B: "5 sessions. Nice block, perfect line, but the amount of toe hooks reduces the rating... Drove me crazy, doing all these similar moves from the bottom to the crux... Almost gave up on it after 3 sessions, the toughest mental battle I had with a boulder. Maybe FFA?"
Shosholoza 8A+: "The best boulder in the whole world! 2 sessions. Also, FFA?"
Oral Office 8A+: "Mega jump, loved trying it! 2 sessions."
Pendragon 8A: "Such a waste of time. Dabbed a million times. Nice holds."

What did you think about the Olympics and the bouldering in particular?
Sad I didn't make it there. Looked magnificent. Less fortunate for some athletes due to shortcomings of the combined format, but fairly exciting to follow. Setters need better testers, especially for the female category. There has to be a fresh person who is capable of actually climbing the boulders, and that is on the level of the competing climbers. There should be a female who is well trained. Otherwise, it will always be messy.

Alberto Gines Lopez did participate in 16 IFSC comps in 2021 as a preparation for the Olympics in Tokyo. The runner-up, out of all other 39 Olympians, did just do half as many. In the last World Cup, prior to the Games in Briancon 18/7, the Spaniard was #7 and the only Olympian participating! (c) Daniel Gajda/IFSC

His first IFSC comp in 2021 was the Euro Bouldering Cup in Klagenfurt 11/4 where he was #27. The following weekend he was #73 in the Meiringen Boulder WC. Two weeks later he was in Russia for the Euro Junior Championship and his results were again not that good; #4 in Lead, #8 in Speed and #12 in Lead. Then he stepped up winning three out of five Euro Youth Cups.

Back on the World Cup circuit, he skipped Salt Lake City, and was 41 - 5 - 5 - 31 - 5 and then 7 in Briancon. (Most of the best did not participate in these World Cups.) Even if Alberto had had relatively poor results in the comps 2021, I placed him as #5 in the 8a qualification prediction. The reason for this was that I agreed on such a competition focus prior to the Olympics.

In the Olympic qualifications, the 18-year-old started by being #7 in Speed and #14 in Bouldering and things did not look great for making the finals. The pressure was on and then he pulled out his best Lead performance of 2021 and was #3 in Lead. Before the final, I once again lifted Alberto and said that he would get the bronze if he won over Colin Duffy in Speed.

In the final, Duffy started out by doing a 0.005 false start. Then Alberto beat Adam Ondra in the semi and later Tomoa Narasaki slipped in the Speed final. In Bouldering he was #7 and then #4 in Lead and he was the winner of the first-ever Olympic climbing gold.

It should be mentioned that until 2019, he had won eleven Euro Youth Cups including two Euro Championships. In 2019, at age 16, he was #2 in the World Cups after three podiums. Out on the rock, he has made 8a headlines since he did his first 8c (+) being 13-years-old!

"In 2018, Babsi Zangerl and Jacopo Larcher managed to claim the coveted second ascent of the wall’s most difficult route—Odyssee (8a+). Fighting with loose, wet rock and unstable weather conditions, they spent four days living on the wall in order to reach the summit. This past August, they returned to the wall in an attempt to re-climb Odyssee in less than a day and write their names into the “Nordwand’s” history book forever. "

Sport Climbing did get some coverage also in general media and some were critical towards the multiplication maths. The headline of The Guardian goes, "Climbing is a hit at the Tokyo Olympics – but does it reward the best athletes?" Later on, one paragraph begins with, "Instead, in a method only a maths teacher could love..."

The headline of NY Times goes, "In Climbing, Finding a Way Up Is Just One of the Calculations" In fact, a big portion of the article goes on like this, "None of the climbers liked that three distinct climbing disciplines — speed, bouldering and lead climbing — were mashed together into one medal event. What they may not have anticipated was the chaos it created in the final moments of competition."

As you probably might know, I have also been critical and I do not think there is any other sport with even a similar multiplication format. Luckily, I have not seen any media found or have been talking about that if not Colin Duffy started off his Olympic career by doing a 0.005 seconds false start, and instead had beaten Alberto Ginés López, the 18-year-old Spaniard would have switched his gold for being #7 and being last in the final. Then 17-year-old Duffy would probably have won the gold, instead of being #7!

Slovenia dominated the Euro Youth Cup in Slovakia with four golds and another five Top-4 positions. Most of the countries in the western Europe did not participate or did just send small teams.
02: Giorgio Tomatis ITA - Lucija Tarkus SLO
04: Timotej Romsak SLO - Sara Copar SLO
06: Gorazd Jurekovic SLO- Barbora Bernadora CHE

The European Bouldering Cup in Krakow took place this weekend. Mathieu Ternant from France was #16 in qualis but then he won both the semi and final. Anna Lechner from Germany started out by just making semi as #19 in the qualis and then #5 in the semi before she won the final. Overall, France dominated as they also got one silver among the female, Fanny Gibert, as well as four more Top-11 positions. Complete results

Almost 2 000 8a members participated in the 2020 Tokyo prediction. Klaus Wiele won getting 1 000 points, by having five out of six correct answers in the Quiz as well as getting all Top-5 women exactly right and he wins The Surprise Five Ten Athlete Package. Runner-ups with 900 points were Johannes Kohtz and Moritz Welt (who just did an 8c+ in Flatanger). The third position was tied among nine persons. Here you find the complete ranking.

Everyone participating will get awarded a 1-month Vertical-Life premium Voucher. There are also 5 Hiangle Pro packages, including shoes and 150 Euros Voucher, as well as 4 * 150 Vouchers from Adidas, at stake in a raffle "Each answer and rank you predicted correctly will earn you 100 points and one ticket toward the raffle."

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What are your thoughts about Climbing in the Olympics?
I just watch qualifications. I was at the crag during finals.
1) we produced a great show for the mass media and the public. I think that the climbing movement, which is unique, is now shared with more and more people, who will start and enjoy climbing. We have a responsibility as media to educate them and to spread authentic climbing values. That's the main reason we created Fanatic: was to promote an outdoor climbing culture.
2) A critic about the comp format. I think that the rest in between the different disciplines were too short and we didn't watch the best climbing, especially in lead. Climbers were exhausted some got injured. It's not a good organization. I hope in Paris for the combined more time and rest could be better for the best show and performance. It could be like, one-day bouldering quali followed by one day lead quali one day rest and then the same for the finals.
3) The ranking with multiplication is too complex. We need to find a way to have a more simple ranking. That's my thoughts but I want to say that I'm more turned on outdoors. So my opinion doesn't really count, lol :)

Last critic, the 🎥 were quite bad in France on the tv. Often the angles were bad we didn't see them very well. They should deal with some filmmakers who know how to correctly film climbing.

How much coverage did Climbing get into general media in France?
Newspapers in France are mainly focused on team sports; rugby, football and handball. I dunno if some articles on climbing were written about climbing. I think that climbing has seen maximum ten lines in French press. I think just the results.