Reaching for new heights

Several team members, coaches and BMC officials attended a reception in Westminster on the 2nd November.  Following a tour, we met with MPs, senior Sport England staff, Dame Kelly Holmes (awesome) and Minister Hugh Robertson to promote climbing and mountaineering.  Overall the event seemed extremely positive and we hope it will help raise support for the sport, the team and our chances in the 2020 Olympics shortlist.

Audrey Seguy gave a superb speech highlighting how climbing and mountaineering is a sport for all, regardless of age or ability.  Also, how the trend is for people to maintain participation in our sport, rather than drifting away and ceasing to exercise.  Discussing sport in general, after the speeches, I learnt that many people give up their sport after a while as they can’t necessarily keep up or keep it together (either physically or mentally).  Some sports only work in a competition format.

The difference with mountaineering may be that, although it is typically a group participation sport, the competition is ultimately between you and the mountain, the rock, the ice, the plastic etc.  You can always have achievable goals.  This could be getting to and from a certain place outside in the fresh air from the nearest car park (under your own steam of course), like Curbar Edge for example with its stunning views.  It could be going to play at your local climbing wall with your mates, or something altogether more epic like the first ascent of something.  It’s doing it that counts.

This sentiment was reflected at the recent Women’s climbing symposium at The Climbing Hanger, Liverpool.  Over ninety women attended to discuss climbing, to learn and offer advice on how to improve, to climb.  People came from as far as Devon and Scotland for the day.  The good thing about the day was that it was all about the climbing, rather than differences between men and women and the possible excuses this may offer.  There are no excuses!

Onwards and Upwards

Competition climbing is now an Olympic recognised sport and it is short listed for inclusion in the 2020 Olympics.  This is an exciting development for the ever growing sport of indoor climbing.  It is an honour to represent my country in my chosen sport, and to see it included in the Olympics would be great  for the competitors and the sport in general. 

The question is - what inspires us to compete?

I do not compete to get attention, however it is nice to get recognition for achievement.  I have a blog to promote competition climbing, the British Climbing Team and climbing in general.

In bouldering many of the competitors, myself included, compete due to enjoying the challenge of working out and topping short, hard, technical problems.   We are competing against the challenge of the boulder and seek new challenges on a regular basis.  The competition must be on manmade boulders as it would be unfair to compete on natural rock as the competitors may have been on it before so wouldn’t have to work it out on the spot.  Also, considerable damage would likely be caused to any natural rock environment if a competition was held in it.

But why compete against others, rather than just the boulder problem?  Well, it’s natural to compete with each other – it happens all the time at the climbing wall and it’s human nature.  If I can’t top a problem I work at it, I want to beat it if possible.  If someone else can top it, then it is possible and I maybe try harder, try and work out what I am doing differently.  Do I lack the strength, power, flexibility, endurance, savvy etc to top it? 

When put in a competitive environment, adrenaline comes into play.  I find I can do moves that I cannot always repeat outside of the competition.  It helps me in the challenge of beating the boulder.

Bouldering can be very sociable.  Through competitions,  I have met many fantastic characters.  I’ve also had the opportunity to visit some amazing places, despite climbing on plastic! 

Oh, and it feels good to do well and even better to win!

Matching in Munich

Apparently matching makes you weak.  However, when you’re feeling weak, matching helps you through.

For a couple of weeks before Munich I’d been suffering bad back knots.  Whilst warming up for the last World Cup Qualifiers of the season, I found I was in pain and couldn’t pull on one side the same as usual.  *Darn! (*insert expletives)

I had my best start position ever, but quickly dropped down out of the semis.  I was really disappointed, but realise that it was for the best, as if I had matched the 4th top hold, or had a couple of less goes on the three tops I got, and therefore made the semi, I may well have done my shoulder some major damage (assuming I haven’t already).  Never mind, I got points – not bad in the circumstances.  The comp was really good for the team – we all got points and team GBR came 6th.  Also, Shauna crushed to come 4th in her third ever World Cup.  Awesome.

I finished the season with my best overall result to date – 25th in the World Cup (World Ranked 28th).  I know what I need to train for next season and can’t wait to fix myself so that I can start training again.  It’s the difficult month of year when I try and do anything other than climbing to give my body a chance, but end up out with my mates climbing.  I’m sticking to friendly moves…. honest.

I was hoping to try a few hard things outdoors whilst still strong from the comps, but that’ll have to wait too.

Adidas Rockstars, Austria

Wow.  I was invited to attend a new event at Area 47 in Austria – Adidas Rockstars.  As an athlete I was treated like a VIP from the moment I was picked up from the airport to the moment I returned.  We had our own lounge for warm up, chill out, eating etc.  Masseurs, physios and a doctor were provided to ease us through the competition.  There were interviews, showing the rock band Orange but Green how to boulder, and really good competitions.  The competition was high, with competitors invited based on World Ranking and outstanding performances.  I qualified in 20th place, and came joint 15th in the semi-final to put me 17th overall after count back.  Not bad.  I need to practice throwing for stuff more, as this style of move often lets me down.  Here’s some comp photos thanks to C Waldegger.  There was also a ‘Be a Rockstar’ comp that 3 GBR girls entered.  The top 3 men and women from the ‘Be a Rockstar’ event qulaified for the Rockstars event.

Outside of the competition, Area 47 is an amazing place in the mountains.  There’s water slides, a pool complex with various activities, aerial fun and canyoning to name but a few activities.  I joined the majority of my competitors in having a go at the bridge swing, jumping quickly before I had a chance to think what I was doing.  After falling for longer than anticipated, with legs going ninety to the dozen, the rope took me swinging between the 2 bridge piers.  Great fun and a big buzz.  Here’s a clip of Magnus from Norway taking his turn (sorry for the poor quality) and some photos I took of the area.  As for the food – I tucked into an indecent quantity of fantastic meat among other things.  Also, I will be making some Kaiserschmarren in the near future.

Bridge Swing from Peter Jeffery on Vimeo.

Arco Comp Photos

Here’s a couple of climbing photos from the World Championships – thanks to Nick Clement our Team Manager.  Two slabs in the same round – slow, careful climbing for the tops

World Championships 2011, Arco

Surrounded by the steep limestone faces on which the competition was originally held and thousands of people have climbed, Arco is an inspiring place.  A castle towers high above the town with narrow cobbled streets housing delights for all.  An ice-cream parlour serving more flavours than you can name also displays photos of the owner with famous climbers.   There’s pizza, pasta and outdoor equipment stores.  The cafe by the church, with the usual array of tables in the street shaded by an awning, is a climbing cafe.  Climbing is everywhere.

Over fifty nations paraded through the streets, lined with photo portraits of previous stars of the competitions and welcoming spectators.  The town celebrates climbing.  We held our flags high and made our way to the competition arena for the opening ceremony.  After pledges to abide by the rules of the Climbing and Paraclimbing World Championships, we were entertained with an artistic display of singing, dancing and acrobatics.  The theme was elements, relating the 3 disciplines of bouldering, lead and speed to fire, air and water with power, grace and flow.

Over 700 competitors were entered between all the disciplines – amazing.  For me the bouldering competition had its ups and downs.  The qualification problems were very doable, but also very droppable.  Competing against almost 70 other girls, we were split into two groups in which we needed a top ten result to proceed to the semi-finals.  This is the biggest field I have competed in.  I flashed 3 problems and dropped 2, with some frustration.  I tied with Alex Puccio and for some time we were in joint 10th place.  Some strong contenders came through and we finished joint 12th in our group, 23rd overall.  Once again, a close one.  I am very pleased to have flashed problems, got points in such a big field and tie with Alex, a multi-finalist in the World Cup series.

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