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.