Thursday, 18 June 2009

Eindhoven Photos


Ned (and his shorts) and me in the semis.


Semis - a miss and a hit. It was an awkward off balance launch.


Qualifiers - pop for the top. There was a nice crimp on the sloper :-) for my third flash


Qualifiers - first 2 flashes

Tuesday, 16 June 2009

Fontainebleau and Eindhoven

I had a few days holiday in Fontainebleau before going to the last round of the World Cup in Eindhoven, Netherlands.

We got 2 days climbing out of 3. Good considering the amount of rain in between times. Real rock felt a bit foreign and I struggled on the slopers. I thoroughly enjoyed myself but didn't manage more than half of anything in the 7's. I did however do lots of very nice 6bs.

The World Cup went well afterwards. I qualified in joint 15th and went on to come 15th in the semi-final. My best result yet placing me 29th overall at the end of the World Cup Series. Ned Feehally came 6th in the comp - an awesome effort. There's an article on UKC.

Monday, 1 June 2009

Vienna WC

I had a good World Cup in Wien and felt strong after my finger strength intensive.

I was the penultimate climber out which gave me plenty of time to warm up. I started well with a flash. The second bloc with chunky holds gained via heel hooks was not so successful. I messed up placing my hand incorrectly on the bonus and hung around for ages trying to correct. By the time I did I was wasted. I should have let go and repeated as the move was actually ok. I didn't have enough left to finish the problem but I believe I could have topped it if I hadn't hung around. The end moves looked totally do-able. Grr


I recovered well in the rest period to be faced with a really awkward double handed dyno from bad holds on the 3rd bloc. I caught it on my 7th go and topped with seconds to spare. Super - chuffed and somewhat surprised I moved on. Jon caught my leap on camera.


Only 2 others topped this bloc.

I went on to top the last two blocs to get 4 tops in 14 and all 5 bonuses. Angelica was congratulating me on making the finals, then the results were finalised... I was the only one with 4 tops not to qualify and only one other had all 5 bonuses. Unfortunately I had too many attempts placing me 11th in my group, 21st overall. I needed bloc 2 then I would have been 2nd in my group!! What a difference a couple of holds make.

Dave and Stewart crushed coming 6th and 8th. Dave 'won' the semi. Nice one.


I had a look around Vienna with Jee. I wanted to go on one of the Segways. Instead we went on foot, but saw most things. It's quite a compact place with lots of nice buildings, horse drawn carriages, tons of statues and several large gold balls.