On March 16 I won the Belgian Lead Climbing Championship in Louvain-la-Neuve. Congrats to Celine and Laura for taking silver and bronze and to Marie and Charlène from youth B who became 3rd and 4th even though they were still too young to officially participate.
Thanks to the organizers for making it a nice and well-organized competition.
The season is over! This competition in Slovenia marked the end of the international Lead season.
Unfortunately, it ended with a dissapointment for me.
On Saturday 14 November I topped my first qualification route. In the second one my heel slipped off a hold without friction. I was on a provisional 11th spot, enough for the semifinal later that evening.
After a little break in our appartment, my mother and I returned to the isolation zone for the next round. I knew I had put way too much pressure on myself during the qualifications, so before the start of the semifinal I decided to stop being fearful. I wanted to trust instead.
The first move of the women’s semifinal route scared many of us; it was a little jump. It couldn’t be extremely difficult, but surely it was risky enough to make you fall. This happened to Tjasa Kalan from Slovenia. I still don’t know the reason why routesetters set such traps…
I was relieved when I stuck this first move and while climbing I felt that the rest of the route was quite weird too. But since I had decided not to give up I tried to keep going even though the moves were strange. I finally ended up on a provisional 3rd place. I felt tired after such a long day, but very thankful for a good climb.
The next evening all finalists met again in the isolation for the last worldcup final of the year.
During my climb I had some difficulty with one of the first quickdraws. I finally managed to clip it from a higher position. Since this had cost me some power, I tried to recover in the middle of the route. When I reached the end of the overhang I wasn’t too tired and I wanted to climb on to the last vertical part of the wall.
I reached for a big yellow hold and realized that it was worse than I had expected. I replaced my feet and made a toehook with my right foot. Then I went for the next hold… and fell.
Maybe the toehook had prevented me from grabbing the hold high enough. I wasn’t sure. But anyway, it was a dissapointing way to end the season.
Thankfully, I was able to have peace with the situation despite the grief I felt.
Kranj 2015 (Flickr IFSC)
There have been very painful moments this season. I’ve had to cry several times, thinking of the weeks and months of preparation and of ‘what could have been possible’. But I know these kinds of moments shape a person’s character. I believe nothing in my life happens by chance.
As a human, I cannot look further than the present. But the Almighty God can. Only He knows what the future will bring. When I loose control, He is always in control. That is why I can trust Him. Even in the hard times. Even in the questions.
I’d like to thank my parents, friends, members of the club in Puurs and others who supported me throughout the season. And of course I want to thank my Savior, Jesus Christ.
On 18 and 19 October the 6th World Cup of the year took place in Wujiang (near Shanghai).
City trip to China, just for the weekend. 😉
Qualifications went well with a double TOP. I was tied with Jain and Jessica.
In the semifinal my left heelhook slipped just before the roof. Luckily I still made it into the final with a provisional 7th place.
The final went well until a good rest at hold 32. Then a powerful move from 33 to 34. But once I had 34 with my right hand I realised I should have had it with my left hand, even though we had all decided to go with right during the observation.
Making an attempt to reach 35 would certainly mean a fall, but I was still fresh enough to go on. While I was searching and resting in the meantime, I thought about changing hands on 34 but that seemed not the way it was meant. So I decided to return to hold 32. Unfortunately my foot slipped off and I fell.
Katharina had fallen on 33+ so I found myself sitting in the winners seat (or in the ‘winner of the seat’ as the Chinese sign said ;)). To my surprise Magdalena also fell at 33+, so did Mina, Yuka, Hélène and Jessica. The last climber, Jain, made the move to 34, changed hands and climbed on to fall on 40+. Congrats Jain!
Two years after my first worldcup final, there was a worldcup held in Puurs again. That is the climbing gym where I always train. For the people from our club it meant a lot of hard work, meetings and e-mails. But the result was a great comp with an outdoor festival, great food and fun things to do. And on top of that, we received splendid weather!
But for me, things did not turn out as I had hoped:
Friday, the day before the competition, I start feeling sick.
Sick. Just now.
A competition on home soil, I have trained so hard and all my fans are hoping for a good result…
Several TV companies ready to record a great show…
The only thing I can do is to give everything to God.
If this had happened a week before, I would have stayed in bed and would have skipped a training.
But now… I have to climb a world cup… Jesus help me!
The qualification day starts. During warming up I feel weak. But instead of falling early, I top both qualification routes!
Then some interviews, autographs for sponsors, pictures being taken and finally, some rest.
Sunday morning, semifinal. I feel worse.
I have to climb second last. The route looks alright, but I have no idea how I will feel. I have nothing to put my trust in except for God. So that is what I do: I give everything into His hands.
I climb without paralizing pressure since I have nothing to expect. And, somehow, I am able to top the semifinal route! The speaker says: ‘And just as Anak would say, thank You Jesus’.
Photo: Alan Cuypers
My home crowd is impressed. People hope that I will win. Now the pressure is getting higher.
I try to rest in our van. Meanwhile there is a fun competition: Guinness record DYNO. My friend Celine shatters the world record 7 times!
I go back into isolation for the final route. Even warming up is difficult.
Finally it is my turn. I climb well, the crowd cheers me on. It seems like I am able to top out.
Photo: Jérôme Vervier
But then, nearly at the top, I miss a hold. I go back to the previous one and try again. But I don’t have enough power left and… fall. The dream is gone.
Both Mina and Jain climb really strong and top out. I am in 3rd place and a little disappointed.
Photo: Jérôme Vervier
But hey. Wait! Before the comp started I felt so bad that I didn’t want to compete. Still, God gave me the bronze medal!
As a christian, I am like a soldier, a servant of God. The enemy, satan, tries hard to discourage me and make me stumble. I believe that this illness which struck me on the exact weekend where I hoped to be fit, was no coincidence.
But God is faithful. And I believe that His plan for my life will happen. This time, the right place for me was 3rd. Yes, thank you Jesus! 🙂
Comforted by Celine (Jérôme Vervier)
Podium with Mina and Jain (Photo: ERTS)
Photo: Jérôme Vervier
Photo: Jérôme Vervier
Photo: Marc De Schryver
From September 1st to September 5th I competed in the World Youth Championship in Arco, Italy. My last youth competition.
Every time I had been to a World Championship I was fully prepared. But every time something special had happened and I had never been able to win. So this year… I knew that there was still one chance left for me to become world champion as a Junior. But of course, I was not the only one with this hope since many of my peers are strong and experienced climbers.
I am blessed to be born in the year 1996, a year with several top climbers. It has always been difficult to win youth competitions, but that has motivated me to keep training hard and has taught me a lot even before I started doing worldcups.
While being in Arco, I could feel the pressure increasing. With only one route to climb every day and a rest day in between, the competition was spread over 5 days… a lot of time to think, worry and wonder. As the day of the finals came near, the load of uncertainty became too heavy for me. I was trying to control everything. But thankfully, I could give it over to the almighty God. Because only He knew what was going to happen and what the final result would be. And only His will for me would happen, whether that was a 1st or a 2nd or any other place.
I passed the qualification round with 2 tops and also reached the top in the semifinal – along with 2 other girls. Then the finals started…
After the observation of the final route nobody seemed certain about the roof section. Did we have to turn around there or not? Most other movements looked fairly logical. My goal was to top the route and surely to not give up.
And then I started climbing my last ‘youth-route’. Somewhere in the middle of the route, just before the roof, there were 2 big round holds. As I reached for the first one, I realized that it was extremely flat. I hesitated a little, but then concluded that there was no other way than to match the hold with my other hand. So this I did, determined not to let go. I reached for the next one, which had a little line for the fingers carved into it and, phew, made it past this point.
The roof was less complicated as it looked and the holds were better than in the previous part. When I came out of the overhang, I could hear the crowd and my teammates screaming, but I had no idea what I had to do. In the isolation I had heard the people cheering the other girls so loudly, that I thought they had possibly topped out.
I was more tired there than I had hoped, but since I wanted to give everything I had, there was no way I was going to let go. So, I held on to a grey volume, felt that there was a hold on top, moved my hand towards it, made another move, tried to do the next one and fell.
It seemed like I had climbed well, but I wasn’t quite sure whether it was enough for a first place. But when I saw all the smiling faces in front of me and all those thumbs pointing up, there was no doubt anymore… I had won!
This was such a great gift and a beautiful way to end my time in youth climbing. Now the mental battle was over and I could just enjoy. 🙂
Congratulations to Harold Peeters who took the silver medal in Youth B! Together the Belgians collected these places in both Lead and Boulder: 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 -5 and 6!
Later that evening I also participated in the Duel competition of the Rock Master event. It was a fun competition, even though the route was probably too hard to be climbed in speed modus, especially for the girls. There was a jump in the beginning and a hard move with a super flat hold further on, so part of the girls were eliminated because they fell (which is not the goal in speed-lead climbing). So when I became 3rd, I was really thankful.
I would like to thank everyone who encouraged me and cheered me on during this competition: my parents, teammates, coaches and friends… And especially the people from my climbing gym in Puurs who came to the airport especially to welcome the Belgian team!
Please take a look at my friend’s website to see the surprise she had made for me when I came home.
The first time a climbing worldcup was held in Scandinavia!
I am thankful for a good competition with tops in the qualification and the semifinal routes and a 3rd place as the final result. 🙂
This year’s worldcup in Imst has unfortunately been a dissapointment for me.
I had climbed well in the qualifications and I was tied in 2nd place after the semi final. But in the final my foot slipped and I fell very early in the route, so I ended up 8th. That’s a nightmare for competition climbers. But I put my trust in God, because He only knows why things happen the way they do. So I will continue with good courage. 🙂