Seventh Heaven

At home, with the local crowd, the Sheffield round of the World Cup Series is an amazing, exciting and somewhat scary event!  I had a couple of Canadians staying with me, which helped raise the pre comp anticipation that was slightly missing from last year due to the familiarity of my surroundings.

My warm up went well.  I repeated some familiar problems, covering a variety of climbing styles, and I was catching some practice dynos.  Once again, I started the qualifiers a bit shakily, fumbling around on some volumes, before being faced with a nice thuggy problem that just needed a little finesse to keep my feet on for my first top. 

Then it was double dyno time.  I told myself that I had to do it first time, going with both hands, all out.  I prepared, I jumped, one hand went up…. sigh… but YES, I caught it.  Heel on, climb, climb, climb, don’t drop it.  The top was very droppable, but with some hand swapping and gurning it was done.

I took ages to get going on the fourth problem, before taking a better look at the hold I was rolling over onto.  I decided to pinch lower down near a chip and hand swap into position.  This worked and I quickly gained the penultimate holds.  The top looked a mile away.  One foot was on a steep angled volume, the other on a slippery button.  The coaching in my head was telling me to just jump.  I started to go for it and my foot slipped, but I stayed on, adjusted and jumped.  There was a deafening roar from the crowd – I caught the top hold.  Match, celebrate.

I’d done enough to qualify for the semi-final in 17th place, so 4th out in the semi.  I got the 1st top, annoyed not to get the flash.  I didn’t think to put my foot in the start cup on the second problem, so failed to progress to the bonus.  I just scrabbled around the start moves.  The third problem went 2nd go, after a good think about how to deal with the slopey volume to gain the nice crimp.  I did my signature ‘rock into a lock’ move, finger crawling slowly onto the last hold, desperately inching (possibly millimetre-ing) onto the hold.  Phew.

The fourth problem haunts me a little as I know I could have done it.  I just didn’t think to guppy the bonus.  I didn’t think I’d climbed that well, but am always open minded until I see the scoreboard.  I saw the scoreboard.  I was in first place, and I stayed in the top 6, in final contention, until the last climber climbed the very last problem of the semi-final.  I almost made my first World Cup final.  It was real, I wasn’t dreaming, I’d just come 7th in the World.  Wow.

I was asked ‘What next?  What are you doing tomorrow?’.  The response?  Going to work!

Lol