Another early start and a drive over to Manchester from Liverpool. The bouldering competition was in my new favourite centre The Depot. It is a really nice centre, very new. It has every type of angle and it looks really professional. When we arrived I registered and went straight to look at he blocs.
There were 8 qualifying routes and only a few looked really horrible. Climbing started at 9am so I warmed up as soon as I had looked at all the routes. The centre wasn't too cold which was nice and made warming up a lot easier. I warmed up next to my categories blocs so I could read them at the same time.

Bloc two was the first one I tried. It had lots of nice crimps and my style so I managed to top it.
Bloc three was a slab and looked harder than it was. I saw one of the other competitors complete it and this gave me the beta I needed to top it first go.
Bloc four required a lot of pushing strength which is not something I am usually good at. My first attempt I got passed the first hard pushing move but I failed the second. I had another go and matched a sloppy crimp on the left wall and got a high foot on the ridged sloper. I twisted into the wall and pushed really hard standing up onto the top of the two holds. At this point the judge stopped me to confirm something with the chief judge. Luckily I was in a bridge position and could easily hang around. I then continued with the climb and topped it.
Bloc five was the red next to number four. This was one of the first bloc’s that I tried as it was one of the easier ones. It was quite straight forward with one move which required a lot of pushing but I managed to finish it on my first attempt.
Bloc six was around the corner from this and the last bloc I tried. In my opinion it was the hardest of all. On all my attempts, I failed to get the bonus.

The eighth bloc I named ‘disks’. Three of the holds were in disk shapes. It looked like my type of route because it was mostly about strength. On my first attempt I got to the last hold but couldn't quite match it. On my second attempt I slipped off low down because my heel slipped off a chalky hold. My last go I managed to grab the top hold for a second but it wasn't long enough for a top.
As soon as I finished I handed my score card in and some time after the results came out. I had qualified in third place for the finals behind Holly and Kitty.
It was soon time for isolation but were weren’t in there for long before we came out for observation. Our three blocs looked ok. Our first one looked really easy, the second one looked harder but doable and the third looked hard and was all about balance.


The last climb was really hard. I found one of the hardest parts was actually getting ono the wall and then after that bridging across the wall required a lot of tension. On my first go I slipped off after the bonus but on my second I got past the bonus and up to the second last hold. I then threw for the top hold grabbing it but not quite holding it. I was really disappointed. I had a few more goes after this but didn't get the top hold.
I was really disappointed as I knew the only way I could win was by topping the route. In the end I finished third the same as qualifying.
Thanks to the BMC for another great comp.
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