Joe Wilson and Tom Newman have both put up a hard new boulder problem each recently. Joe climbed the first ascent of Bloodsport Lefthand, at Shaftoe Crags, a lefthand variant on an Andy Earl 8A+/B, Earl thought the Lefthand would be around 8B. Tom Newman has added a sit-start to Ben Bransby's Three Hundred Pound Musclin' Man, calling it An Extra Pound of Musclin' Man, and grading it 8A.

First up, the relatively unknown Joe Wilson (26), a former British Junior Team member, has had a very good run of form recently climbing testpiece classics such as Zoo York, 8A, at Caley, To You Too, 8A, at Brimham, flashing Lower and Harder, 7C, at Back Bowden, and climbing Earl's original Bloodsport, 8A+/B.

Talking about how the Lefthand variant differs from Earl's original problem, Joe commented:

"Bloodsport climbs to the first pocket then moves to a crimp 6 inches below the break then finishes as for Soft Shell out to the right... (You can view a video of Tom Newman on Bloodsport here)

Bloodsport LH eliminates the crimp so you move to a pocket about 2 feet to the left of it, then move to the break and traverse left and mantle out at the nose, as for Galapagos Turtle, E5 6b (I think). I finished it this way rather than traversing right and finishing as for Bloodsport because it felt like to much of an eliminate not using the crimp then traversing right over the top of it. It is also a much nicer line moving out left; it follows the hardest line right up the nose of the block."

This is the first problem Joe has spent more than two sessions on for around 5 years, showing considerable talent and strength. Talking about the difficulty of the problem Joe said:

"It's only really 2 hard moves, Taking my feet of the back wall is hard, I'm so spanned with the beta I use that there is a big swing when I drop my left foot off the back wall, that took me 4 sessions to get when I was working Bloodsport. Then the move from pocket to pocket is enormous. The top pocket is deceptive too; it's terrible until you get right to the back of it where there is an ok 2 finger drag. I campused the traverse out because I didn't fancy taking a fall from the nose with a heel in the break and conditions were so good I didn't need it anyways."

Below is a video of Joe on the first ascent of Bloodsport LH:

Tom Newman recently added a sit-start to Ben Bransby's Three Hundred Pounds of Musclin' Man, at Cratcliffe, naming it An Extra Pound of Musclin' Man, grading it 8A. Tom gave a little more information on the sit-start:

"The sit start I added is quite obvious and adds two tricky moves than drain you a little bit, which makes the finish crux that little bit harder. I thought the name 'An Extra Pound of Musclin Man' was fitting. It a quality climb!"

Below is a video of Tom on the first ascent of An Extra Pound of Musclin' Man: