When I read the routes a bit more they looked harder than I had initially thought. But after reading them properly I thought that I could top them. At 10:30 the demo started for the first qualifier. They made it look easy which made me feel even better about it.
I was 6th to climb. I got to the last part easily but then the judge shouted at me for moving my leg past the black tape. I though I had been disqualified even though I hadn't touched the arret. I didn't hear what the judge said but I carried on climbing anyway. It put me off but I still managed to top it. I asked if it had counted and it had so I was relived.
I waited until 12:00 for the next demos to start.I watched them and they gave me more confidence. I was up first so after the demos I went down stairs to get tied in.
I was a bit nervous but that soon went away after I started the climb. All the holds were positive on the climb so it was pretty easy I topped it even though I had thought that some of the holds might be bad. I was so pleased that I topped both routes and got to the final.
I watched the rest of my category climb and then went to a restaurant to get some food before the final.
We came back at 14:30 and the qualifying scores were up I was joint first with Pippa and was second last to attempt the final route.
We waited until 15:25 and then ran upstairs to isolation. I then waited even longer to go out for observation. At 16:00 we went down for observation. I had the green route on my qualifying wall. At first it looked hard but seemed to get easier the more I read it. We only had 6 mins to view the route so I soon had to go back up stairs to wait until it was my turn.
I got tied in as soon as Kirsten went out to climb. I was really excited and really wanted to top the climb. When I walked downstairs to climb I put my stuff under the scoreboard. I was already tied in and had my shoes so I got on after a 3 second refresh of the route.
The first three clips were easy, the fourth was a bit harder. In between the fourth and fifth clips I did a mini jump and got the hold. The next few moves were OK - my favourite one was where I rolled out from a side pull and grabbed the next hold because I don't usually do things like that and it was something new. I was nervous as I got closer to the top because I knew I would be gutted if I fell off at that point. The last two moves were difficult and I was really happy to have done them.
This meant that I had topped the route. I thought that I had done it quite quickly and hoped it was enough to win even if it went back to time and countbacks.
Once everyone had finished climbing I was told that I had won and I was really happy. We watched the other categories' finals. Whilst we were watching Damien came up to us and told us the first prize was a sixty euro voucher for the shop and that we should start having a look because we were flying back early Sunday morning. I looked in the shop and decided to put my voucher towards a GRIGRI as I didn't have one.
It was awesome to be on the podium again and I really enjoyed the competition. I am definitely going again next year. Thanks to all the route setters as the routes were fantastic and set just at the right level to split the categories. Also, the competition ran exactly to time which proved the organisers were very good.
The results can be found here: Results
Report from Mountaineering Ireland here; Report
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