Ratho European Championships

Qualifier 2

This weekend many climbers from all over Europe travelled to Ratho for a shot at becoming European champion. This is probably the second biggest competition of the year after the World Championships so everyone was looking very serious and focussed. On the other hand I was feeling pretty relaxed because after a poor performance in Imst it was going to be easy to improve but I still wanted to feel like I'd done my best. To be honest all I wanted was to come off pumped without making silly mistakes.

I competed on the Saturday morning and I was on 5th. Warm-up went well and I was confident I could do well on the route after working through the sequence. It was a line of big, bright pink, blobs up the wall so looked athletic and powerful, a typical indoor route which wouldn't look out of place in a showy American comp. Once again the nervous hit as I was sitting on the preparation chairs watching someone fall of really low. Take a deep breath, go! The lower wall was easy just moving on good edges, about 7b then came a big slot. after some funky moves around this I came to a big cross-over move at about the fifth clip, I went for it and stuck the hold but I was loads worse than I expected and I couldn't unwind and I fell. I all seemed like a flash I barely got any time on the wall. This annoyed me because just after a new sequence appeared where you matched and missed the desperate cross move which looked loads easier! I knew I could have done loads better.

The second qualifier was on the stepped roofs of the old competition wall which was one of my favourite parts of the wall. I got on the route feeling confident and strong, I was comfortable on every move which is unusual. At the first roof though I almost fell because there was a massive move! Thinking about it now I still don't know how I stuck it. I then went on to climb really well, I got into the second roof super pumped but managed to stick the moves across it but then fell at the desperate slap for a crimp over the lip. I came of boxed which was all I wanted so I was happy.

I found I had finished in 24th place which was ok but in the worlds I'm sure I can do better and hopefully make top twenty. The next day was the finals and we had Molly and Will competing. Will was out first and got really high but fell which was surprising seeing as he was strong enough to do a crowd raiser. Next was Molly and she got really high and was in first until the very last person who got to the same place and beat her on count back so close!

I'm still feeling really psyched and am really excited for a mega trip to Europe hopefully getting some classic routes in. In Frankenjura I want to repeat some of Jerry Moffat's route like Bastard 8b, Ekel 7c+ and then hopefully some bouldering in Austria where I'd like to get another 8A!

Thanks to my Sponsors
Dewerstone
Sports Aid
North Devon Sports Foundation





Flexibility paying off!