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.
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