Another long trip - This time... Austria

Route 1 in Imst 

After being at home for only 5 days, I headed out to Austria for 2 more competitions – the first a World Cup held in Imst and the second a European Youth Competition in Längenfeld 2 weeks later. I will be brief: Imst was another disappointing competition for me… in fact all of the World cups have been disappointing.  I’m not saying I expected to go out and find the compeititons a walk in the park, I just know I didn’t climb as well as I could’ve.

Training in Vienna with Georg

The conditions in Imst were pretty good; Sunny but the air was fairly cold so friction was high. The first route was quite techy and I managed to get through half of it before feeling the pump kick in. I found that clipping really messed me up in this competition; on the first route where I fell, you had to get a clip from a certain hold otherwise it was too far to reach from the next holds. I felt too pumped to get the clip from the awkward crouched on a volume position and so went for the next hold but by then the clip was out of reach and there was no way I could continue. Again I messed up a clip on route 2 which was, frustratingly, more my style and I think I could’ve got pretty high on if I hadn’t have gone passed the best place to clip a draw from. This meant I wasted energy climbing up and down to try and clip and when I did get the clip in I had become too pumped and fell on a hard rollover 2 holds higher.

The Längenfeld competition wall

After Imst I was very motivated to train hard and was looking forward to spending the two weeks between the World Cup and the EYBC in Austria. It was so cool to use their amazing facilities and visit walls in Vienna and Mitterdorf. And I even managed to climb on some rock too!

I really wanted to improve on my performance in L’Argentierre and my goal for the competition was to make the top 10. I really enjoyed the set and felt pretty strong on most problems. I got off to a good start but started making errors and slipping. I finished with 6 tops in 9 and all of the bonuses. Unfortunately this was not enough for finals but it did mean that I had achieved my goal, finishing in 9^th place. I was pleased to have achieved my goal but not satisfied. I was so close to finals; I needed one more top and on my flash go on boulder 2, I fell after touching the last hold which if I'd have topped would've pushed me into finals. Every other go on that problem my foot popped. This was really frustrating for me as I was so close to making the finals and when it comes down to things like foot slips which can easily be avoided it makes it even more annoying. Sadly Längenfeld was my last international boulder competition of this season but I wish the boulder team the best of luck for the European Championships in Arco in a couple weeks!

Crew in Längenfeld

Focused! Picture by Heiko Wilhelm

Now I’ll focus on lead again as the World Youth Championships is quickly approaching! With a month to go I’m extremely motivated to get that last bit of training in before we literally travel to the other side of the world to Noumea (New Caledonia).

Finally I’d like to say a massive congratulations to Will Bosi for his well deserved 2^nd place in Längenfeld, and Tara Hayes and Max Ayrton for their strong performances in the finals J

Thanks for reading!

And thanks to my sponsors:

Lyon (La Sportiva, Petzl, Beal)

Berghaus
NuLine
Natoora
Michael and Lauren Clancy
Sports Aid
Sport England
Westway Development Trust

My Grandparents :)