A Good Start To 2013...

I apologise for not writing in a while... I've been very busy! This blog is going to be a summary of some events that have happened recently in 2013.

First up was the press event held by the BMC to promote climbing for the Olympic 2020 bid. I was lucky enough to demo lead climbing along with World champion Fran Brown who demoed paraclimbing (which is one of the most inspiring things I've ever seen!) and International Wad and crusher Shauna Coxsey who demoed bouldering. It was a great event and a great opportunity to talk to reporters and 'big up' climbing!

Fran, Myself and Shauna (Alex Messenger)

 

Next was the CWIF. It was my first time entering the cwif and I was psyched to see how I fared against the top British senior women. I had the honour of climbing in the MOON team and climbing with Ben Moon himself! Qualification round went ok and I qualified for the semis in 12th place. After a good nights sleep I was up early and in isolation ready for some funky blocs. Unfortunately the semis didn't go as well as I wanted them to and I finished in 14th place. I had seen the standard of the athletes that climbed in the finals and decided that I would need to train very hard to think about competing at that level anytime soon! (Picture at the bottom).

 

Demonstrating lead climbing at the BMC Press event (Alex Messenger) 

In March, I appeared on Simon Mayo's Radio 2 drive time. This was a great experience and I really enjoyed it. I was on air in the evening for about 3 minutes, talking about my climbing and climbing possibly being an Olympic sport. It was a nervy evening but one I will never forget! :)

 

Later in March was the first Junior British Team inaugural meeting/assessment. The first day started off with a meeting to introduce new team members and get some awesome new kit. After that the lead team went to the Foundry and the boulderers to the Works. We all had our medicals and fitness tests and the day was over. Day 2 was the assessment side for both teams. Everyone's aim was the same: to be selected for the World Youth Championships in Canada in August. I recently found out that I would be competing in all 4 lead competitions this season: European Youth Cup Edinburgh, European Championships Imst (Austria) , World Youth Championships in Canada and the European Youth Cup in Stavanger (Norway).

Lastly, I was invited to train with Youth World Champion Hannah Schubert by Austrian head coach Ingo during the first week of the Easter holidays. It was really interesting to see how other countries structure their training and how they prepare for competitions. It was also lovely walking around the beautiful town of Innsbruck - which I hope to return to soon!  

All in all it's been a pretty good start to the year. I'm psyched for just under 3 months of hard training and preparation for my first international comp of 2013 in Edinburgh!

Thanks for reading,

 

Train Hard.

 

And thanks to my sponsors!

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