slack blogging! world championships

definatley been a bit slack on the blogging front, especially with everything that has been going on. First up was the world championships held slap bang in the middle of china and no where near any climbing, Xining in the qinghai region to be precise. Qualifiers where held on the tuesday, i felt pretty tired and my legs where really stiff, probably from the travelling, but managed to hall myself up three out of the five problems to qualify for the semis in 19th. With the semi-finals not till saturday i would hopefully manage to recover and do some stretching!........but thursday night saw me reproducing my dinner at a high rate of knots out of both ends! not a pleasant experience. Friday i managed a small plate of dry spagetti for lunch and not much more in the evening leaving me expecting to be last in saturdays semi-final. Saturday morning i felt really strong and light......... for two moves before all energy seemed to desert me! How ever it seemed that my new found pre-comp tatics worked quite well as i did three out of the four problems, coming very close to the fourth one and i'd qualified for the final in fifth place, maybe it was th jam that made me feel at home!
So to the final, i felt much less nervous than i had felt in Vienna, probably as i didn't expect anything.
I did all four problems but in less attempts than the two Russians leaving me in third place, although in hind-sight i should have flased them all and been world champion, but thats comps for you.
Here's some pics of me in the final,



So that was the world championships, a totally unexpected result, and Britains first medal at a world championship, awesome!

World cup - Eindhoven

i have just returned from the final round of the world cup in Eindhoven. On reflection 25th isn't bad considering i've been fighting a bought of man flu for the past week, leaving me feeling pretty drained and having no power on the steeper problems. i earned a few more valuble points and finished in 21st place overall, not too bad considering i only did 3 out of the five rounds.
It was awsome to see ned make the final, his first and the second British finalist in two comps! Heres Ned in the final.


I now have just over a week to stop the flow of liquid coming out of my nose (nice!) before flying out to China for the world championships.

final time

Finally i climbed to my potential in a world cup semi-final, to make it through to my first world cup final, in first place! Unfortunately in getting there i pulled a muscle in my shoulder, making it a real effort to lock off on my left arm, though it didn't seem to effect me too much, that was more due to very thin skin and wet finger tips, making it very difficult to stay on the tiny crimps involved in the 2nd and 3rd problems. It was slightly disapointing to finish in 6th, having climbed so well in the semi's, although i still enjoyed it, thanks to Jamie for a great set of problems.
Here's a pic of me in the qualifiers.

World cup - Vienna

Just about to fly out to Vienna(Wien) for the third round of the bouldering world cup, my 2nd of the season. i am hopefull for this one on the back of my last three comps, plus the fact that Britains Jamie Cassidy is the chief route setter, so no excuses about the style of problem.

8a onsight

On sunday i onsighted Kleptomania at hollywood bowl (Giggleswick North), my first 8a onsight in the uk, i onsighted 8a in Kalymnos last September.

Three comps....three weekends!

1st up was Rd 2 of the bouldering world cup and my first of the season, i felt strong and fit going into it and training had been going well. Qualifiers were a nerve wracking affair with the field split into 2 groups so the top ten going through from each group. i finished 9th in my group having comfortably flashed 4 out of 5 problems. Semi finals did not go so well, two very wide problems and one that no one looked even close to doing, although that was the one i felt closest to doing! oh well it was good to make the semi's again especially in such a strong field.

Next up was an open international in Kitzbuhel, part of the Austrian cup. I felt bad during the qualifiers, probably down to nerves at the free for all format with as many goes as you liked on the problems! Thankfully i made it through to the semi's the next day. Warming up i felt much better than the previous day, thats what rest days do for you! I proceeded to flash two problems out of the four, good enough to put me in 2nd place and the final. I still felt strong warming up, if a little nervous it only being my 2nd international final. The first problem was the easiest, everyone did it, although not first go, i managed to flash it and felt good and relaxed me a little bit. The 2nd problem was a horrendous pull onto the slab using a razor for one hand only and bad feet. Everyone seemed to have a bad time on this one, i came out brushed the hold and it felt good, the move felt easy, that go, as i dropped the top and could not pull on again! The third problem was another hard one and i knew by the crowds reaction that no one had topped it. A few failled attempts and a quick rest i pulled on with 20 seconds to go, the knee slid perfectly into the knee bar and i grabbed the penultimate hold, but i could feel the familiar friend "pump" setting in and launched for the last hold/volume and to my surprise latched it, i was in the lead.
The final problem came round far too quickly and i knew that i needed it but only had one go left in my arms. I could feel the crowd willing me up it or maybe that was just the small British contingent! i was agonisingly close to latching the last hold, but it was not to be, and i ended up in a slightly disapointing 5th but had great fun getting there. Here's a video of the third problem in the final. There's more videos of the other problems on youtube.



The final comp was the Plywood masters at Boulder UK in Blackburn, I greased through the qualifiers in 2nd, and still felt strong going into the final, were i topped all five problems dropping one once. 2nd was Ned who has not been training too much due to his dissertation, would have been nice to have been a bit closer! Finally i had won something, after far too many 2nds to even mention!

Skymasters

This weekend saw the second skymasters event, so as defending champion i was invited back to defend my crown, although in a very different comp to last year. This years event was termed as speed difficulty, ie climb as fast as possible on lead, across a 14m roof of swinging rotating volumes!
Saturdays qualifiers went well, although my clipping didn't seem to be working too well i qualified in 5th place for Sundays head to head knock outs.
The first knockout against bouldering team member John Partridge, went well, i climbed smoothly and quickly and my clips seemed to be working, bonus! so i posted the fastest time of that round. The quarter finals i came up against Adrian Berry, again all was going well and i was in the lead until disaster struck on the rotating planet, i miss timed the kick getting on to it and oh so painfully rotated too slowly and let Adrian in to take the Semi place (and go on to the final at least!). I was a bit gutted it being the first time i had got that feature wrong, but it was great fun to take part in such a spectacular event, well done to the boys at X1-sports and to James Garden and Shauna Coxsey the eventual winner, good to see the youth doing well.