YCS Final Wolverhamption

Alasdair, Kirsten, mum , dad and I left on Friday afternoon. Kirsten and I had brought blankets to make tents in the back of the car and lots of climbing dvd’s.
We ate pasta for tea and went to bed early.
The next morning we registered at 8.30 at Wolf Mountain. It was quite an interesting wall but there were so many people!! It was all a bit confusing and nobody seemed to know what was happening. We were split into our groups and so I didn’t have Kirsten or Eilidh in my group but I did have Emily and Rebecca from Scotland North. We were to do our first two boulders and then swap with the other group and do our first two routes. We hadn’t done a big warm up which we would normally do, so the lady looking after us just said to put on our climbing shoes and traverse along the wall. I was a bit anxious because I normally do a much longer warm up and the first boulder problem didn’t look that easy. Then I realised everybody was going back through to the main area to do a warm up, I could hardly get through because of all the parents, so I decided to stay and warm up by myself. I managed the first boulder but the second one was hard. There was a really difficult move at the very start of the problem and only a couple of girls got past it out of the whole group. I was really disappointed but I was finding it really hard to focus because it was raining and there was nowhere to sit or keep warm before climbing. I then went on to my first route which I topped, but the second route was more difficult. I came off at 88 points although I felt I should have had 89 because I touched the hold. When I came down the judge asked if I had touched the hold but when I said yes she then said she hadn’t seen me and so couldn’t give me the point. I was disappointed and when I looked at mums video it was obvious I had touched the hold, but the judges cannot look at parents videos for evidence. I just wished the judge had moved to a position where she could see.
We were then shown our last boulder problem. I was first up but I knew I had three goes. I was really pleased with my first attempt and it wasn’t until their second goes that two of the girls went beyond where I had got to. The last route looked really hard technically. I was in a good position because I was climbing last, I could watch all the other girls climb, the only thing was that it was very off putting when everybody kept falling off . Then the girl who won topped it, which was a brilliant climb. I was really psyched to climb well, but I came off because I just couldn’t hold onto a tricky move onto a not very good hold. I was disappointed but overall came in 12th position, and all the girls ahead of me were a year older. I think I could have climbed better but overall I climbed okay. We went out with lots of people for dinner and then played at the hotel until about 11 o’clock. We drove home the next day.

Imst Youth Color Comp, Austria 2011

I really wanted to go to Imst again this year because I had enjoyed the competition last year. The wall is great to climb on and the new outside wall was finished, which was only just beginning to be built the previous year. I had moved up an age category, so I was leading instead of top roping which was more exciting.
I knew I had 43 other girls born in 99 and 98 in my category, and from around 14 different countries. I was looking forward to meeting up with an Austrian friend, Elena, I had made last year, who said ‘luck good ‘ before every time I climbed.
I like the way the competition is organised. They have the timetable on the wall, so that you know when each demonstration of a route will happen, and also when you can have lunch so that you can relax a bit when you are not climbing. The running order also stays the same for the first day and so you can watch the climbers and then warm up when you have around five climbers in front of you still to go, and then tie in ready to climb. I topped my first two climbs but as I was clipping the last bolt the rope slipped out and I took a really big fall. The belayer had let out a lot of slack and so I fell around 15 m. I got a bit of a fright and felt a bit shaky afterwards. I then didn’t climb the next two routes very well, they were very hard but I should have done better on my third route. The last two climbs on the Saturday I felt a bit stronger but still wished I had done better.
I went for a swim with Angus and my mum and his dad to stretch our muscles and then went for something to eat and another early night.
The next morning we did another warm up with Ian Dun and then I did my own warm up as well because I had a while to wait for my first climb. We were climbing our last three routes at the same time. Carmel who is in the British team was in the same category as me, climbed the green route first and then talked me through it. I climbed the yellow and told her all about it. I felt I climbed the yellow reasonably well, but I still wanted to top it, it was a 7C+!!, the green was a 7b and my final route was a 7c+. I was timed out on my last 2 routes, I was just over half way on both of them. We were only given 4 minutes for each route. It would have been good to have known this before we went to Imst because I had no idea how to work out what four minutes of climbing felt like.
Overall I came in 30th place, so I was a bit disappointed, I was hoping to be in the top 20, but my second two routes on the Saturday let me down. I have decided I need to work on climbing faster, getting over ledges and my overall strength. Imst always seems to fire me up to train harder and do better next year. I have another year in this category so roll on 2012. It would be great if more Scottish climbers could go to this comp.

Scottish Finals

Scottish Finals
The top 5 climbers in each category go into the Scottish Finals form Scotland south and North, 10 climbers. We had three routes and three boulders. The boulders weren’t very good, but the second two routes were. The second route I climbed quite well and was lying in about 3rd position but I had a good climb on the third route and came out on top at the end of the qualifiers. The top three then had to go into isolation and climb a final route. We had to wait for 5 and a half hours. The final climb was a blue on the old comp wall. We had 2 minutes to read the route before going back into isolation. I came out last and I found the climb hard but I didn’t see a small hold out to my left and so lost by couple of points. I was really disappointed but was pleased I had lost to my friend Kirsten and I was pleased for her.