As British leading champion I felt I ought
to attend at least one of the rounds of the lead world cup. After a quick scan
down the IFSC calendar and a bit of research I plucked for Briancon as it is
one of the shorter walls on the tour and therefore must be better for a lost
boulderer such as myself!
Post
BBC’s I found my finger still sore and just over a week to do some emergency
circuits, but also fit in as much route setting/coaching as possible as I was
going to Europe for three weeks.
Qualifiers
started early, the first climber starting at 8:30, thankfully I was out 24th
on the first route giving me a little more time for some more coffee to kick
in. The first route was definitely my style on small volumes slopers and
pinches and I got pretty high falling of the same move as quite a few others
leaving me in 14th on that route.
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| The first route slopey pinches in a roof....heaven! |
The 2nd route looked like it was going to hurt! A line of crimps up to the overhang then a powerful sequence through it. The crimps were smaller than they looked and I had to enter battle mode from the deck (normally reserved for at least 15 moves in!) I got through the bottom wall just, then could enter a more comfortable area of power moves (well for me anyhow) the pump was setting in and I fought through another 6 moves before failing on a long go again move.
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| bearing down on the 2nd qualifier |
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| elbows about to go up.
Making semi finals had never even crossed my mind, but I finished in joint 21st and so got to come back the next day for another fight.
In semi finals
you have 6 minutes observation time, then back to isolation and come out in
reverse order of qualification. The route looked hard which was a good thing since
I get pumped at the same height whatever the grade!
The bottom wall
was much harder than it looked, as the moves didn’t quite flow, battling
between positions. I pulled into the roof pumped out of my mind and thankfully
found a knee bar rest where I could take both hands off and try to recover a
little.
After a while I decided I was about as recovered as I was going to get
and quested across the powerful sequence across the roof where my pump soon
returned with a vengeance I fell moving through the lip too pumped to think
clearly and doing the move slightly wrong! I was still pumped an hour later!
A few people
fell of just before me and most went only six moves further, which I found
really encouraging that I was not too far away from making finals! I finished
in 21st, a little disappointing as its always nice to go up a bit.
I will definitely be doing the lead at the world championships in Paris and maybe Kranj at the end of the year. I may even squeeze some proper training in before hand!
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