CWIF Sheffield

Couple of month ago on the training Dutch coach Wouter came to me. He said that after Climbing Works competition in Sheffield (UK) joint training with Slovenian climbing team will be organized. The plan was to stay for 5 more days after the comps and have a good training session.  Offer was very tempting and I’ve decided to go if getting UK visa will not bring me much troubles. I wrote to organizers asked for invitation letter. The replied with another offer: if I will compete for their team they will help me with costs. It will be foolish to reject this offer, so I added this event to my calendar.

Competitions started. I’ve been in Sheffield already and I knew what to expect from climbing gym. Qualification is in festival format. All competitors were divided into two groups, I was in first. But I arrived to Sheffield only at 2am previous night and I didn’t get much sleep, organizers kindly moved me to the second group. In total there are 30 problems, not that many. There are no power problems, the most difficult ones are on balance on slopers. Basically, nothing difficult, probably route settlers have decided to keep our powers for next rounds.

Semifinals and finals are next day. I was climbing well but problems were not difficult. In total I spent 2 extra attempts and was worrying a bit about it.  For the final you should be concentrated, and this is something I forgot. Problems are great but I took it too serious.

Of course I was not happy with the result, but I didn’t plan to get upset either. I should be ready for the coming season!

The most interesting part came in two days. Famous route-setters prepared for us a lot of problems. We were divided into groups and tackled the problems for the five hours. That was incredible! Great marathon where your desire to climb overcomes pain and tiredness.

In two days we will have same marathon full of fighting and joy.

 Big thanks to Graeme, Wouter, Simon (Slovenia), Persi (route-setter) and many others!