It really was an amazing weekend… It was difficult to believe that a dream had come true.

From worst to best

I climbed a good 1st qualifier, but in the 2nd one I hesitated a lot, put my foot on the wrong place and slipped. Right in the beginning. So I climbed my worst competition route ever, in front of my home public. Very disappointing. I thought that my competition was over but, thank God, due to my good 1st route, I still was in the semifinal!

At home we luckily watched the movie again and I saw that I was not that stupid as I had thought. My foot had really stood on the wrong place, so it was obvious that I had hesitated that much. I already felt a little better…

In the semifinal I felt very good and I did not have a lot of stress. There were really hard parts in the route, but I did not want to give up and lots of people were cheering me on. I fell totally tired and I was very happy that I had been able to  climb well.

Seminfinal route (Photo: www.climb2climb.be)

There still were lots of strong climbers to come, but to my suprise I stayed on the 1st place for a long time. As time passed by I started realising that maybe there was a small chance of being in the final. To my surprise I just made it to the finals with an 8th place.

This was amazing. Lots of people came to congratulate me. I went to our camper on the parking lot and tried to sleep a little bit until our coach, Tijl, told me it was time to go to isolation.

Strange, as happy as I was, looking out of the window in the boulder area I could see the kids playing and having fun. I heard the dyno contest going on and I remembered the times when I was still too young to participate at the Worldcup that I had had a lot of fun. Somehow I felt like a bird in a cage but then I braved myself and started warming up.

Then the presentation, great. It was so amazing to stand next to all the top climbers  and it was all a bit strange. I did the observation with Hélène and later with Maggi. They are such nice girls and I really liked reading the route with them.

Then it was my turn to climb and I just enjoyed everything. It was the first time I really liked the climbing in a competition and I could climb without being too nervous. I decided not to take risks in the beginning. I could hear the crowd shouting at the top of their voices and it was amazing to climb with so many lovely people cheering me on. Somehow Helène and Maggi fell lower than me and I ended up 6th.

During the final route (Photo: www.climb2climb.be)

Jain Kim won the competition, Mina Marcovic was 2nd and Momoka Oda 3rd. In the men’s competition Jakob Schubert took the gold medal, followed by Sachi Amma and Sean McColl.

Thanks to all the people from the club who supported me and cheered me on!

I even got a picture from friends in Rodellar to encourage me before the competition. 🙂