European championships

Heading off to the European champs in Paris starting on Wednesday followed by a few days in font after, should be a good trip especially with stew finally breaking his font cherry!
Feeling vaguely strong after a weeks worth of hard pulling, but feeling a bit held back by a slight bit of man flu hampering my recovery. Just have to go and see what happens i guess.

Kalymnos

Just returned from two weeks of mind blowing tufa pulling in kalymnos. Good to touch some real dry rock after the horrible summer we've had. Onsighted a couple of 8a's and a shed load of really good 7b+ to 7c+'s. was good to stilll feel fairly fit.
Now i'm back to a week of hard training and reminding myself how to pull hard for the European championships in Paris starting on the 15th of October.

BBC's

Having had three weeks to train i was feeling in better shape than at any time this year(thank god!) having been struggling with a bit of golfer's elbow. The qualifiers went well, landing up in joint 4th and still feeling fresh for the final.
After watching the women's final, nice one Audrey (go team evolv!) it was into isolation and time to get focused. I was out 4th feeling focused and psyched and flashed the first three problems, but i had a feeling that Stu and Gaz would do the same. I knew that i would need one of the last two problems to stand a chance of winning. I touched the finishing hold on both problems but didn't quite latch them, the last problem because i didn't spot a crucial foot lock! to my surprise Stu didn,t do the last two problems either, but he had qualified better than me. Gaz had had an absolute mare on the first problem and was out of it, and so Ned sneaked in, topping out the last problem to win with four tops in 11 attempts, leaving me in third, awesome effort Ned.

Need to do some training!

After the disapointment of traveling half way round the world to get one bonus hold in Vail (although the problems were hard) it was back to Fiera for the third world cup in as many weeks. I was a bit more positive for this one the chief route setter being our own Jamie Cassidy.

Well i thought wrong! For the second comp ever i didn't top a single probem! although i did drop the top of three problems! Time for some power endurance training i think.





Here's me about to drop the top of the third and probably the hardest problem!









Following a string of disapointing results i have decided not to do the next round in Montauban to concentrate on the BBC in three weeks. On with the training!

Vail dude!!

Had a chilled few days in vail acclimatising, getting over jet lag and being sarcastic to over friendly Americans, they really don't get it!.
Gaz had to get some oxygen.............. yes it is actually real , air in a can!

Finally get to climb tommorrow, hopefully the wall and mats will dry out after a day of rain and drizzle.

BWC - Vail

Have arrived in Vail for the next round of the world cup, with a very confused body. it is currently about 6 in the morning here having been awake for the last two hours! I'm sure i'll get used to it soon enough!
The flight over seemed to go very quickly as Gaz and i were very entertained by the American version of the innovations catalogue. (we were on a plane for 10 hours!)

Lazy route setters!

Finished in 21st in Grindelwald, just about the worst place to finish! should have been 20th and in the semis only the route setters didn't take some holds of the wall from the womens problem and didn't tape the out of bounds so the Slovenian lad Blaz managed to go up the womens problem and back to finish on top of the mens! Hats off to him for doing it but he shouldn't have had the option on a problem that no one else topped out.
Here's a pic of me flashing the first problem.














Stu climbed really well in the qualifiers finishing third but slipped to 16th in the semis