But the end of the world cup season does not mark an end of my competition season. I still have the most important competition ahead – Toulouse. The qualifying event for the olympic games 2020. I’ve worked hard throughout the year and this is the “cherry on the cake”.
Anyway, before we get to that, let’s look back and reflect on the last two competitions of the world cup season.
LWC Xiamen
The first world cup of the Asia trip took place in Chinese city Xiamen. Personally I think this is the best Chinese city I’ve been at. It is extremely clean and offers “european-like” environment.
The venue was located right next to the beach in a high-end hotel. The venue was really amazing and I was super stoked to climb the next day. Unfortunately I had to face speed competition before I could really enjoy lead climbing. I am saying that, because lately I’ve been dedication quite some time to speed training, but I haven’t seen any results.
Maybe it was because I was already prepared to not do well, but I had my worst time of the season. Definitely not the ending I was hoping for… Anyway keeping my head up high as there is still some time till Toulouse.
Speed competition was behind me and I was ready to put my endurance to the test again after a really successful competition in Kranj.
The next morning I woke up full of energy and I just couldn’t wait to start warming up. Everything went great and the end result after first half of the competition was my first ever world cup TOP! I couldn’t think of a better motivational boost.
Despite the great first half, things took a bad turn. It seemed that I’ve eaten something bad the other night and I had problems with my digestion. More accurate – diarrhea. Suddenly things went from “do your best in the second route” to “please don’t shit your pants”. I am actually laughing right now, when thinking about it, but at that time I had a serious problem.
Nevertheless I have it all and it was enough for the bitter 27th place :(, but given the circumstances I think it was a decent result. That was sadly the end of my first competition and in the following days my goal was simply to get better and do a few short session to maintain my endurance level. It was soon time for my second chance!
LWC Inzai
Action resumed the next week. This time we moved from China back to familiar Tokyo for the last competition. The venue was located on the outskirts of Tokyo, more accurately in Inzai. Compared to the previous venue, this one was much worse. The wall was only wide enough for two routes, which meant that women and men were separated into two groups.
That was one of things I was not really happy about, because I always get really excited on the day of competition and waiting is really frustrating. If that wasn’t bad enough I got last starting number.
Nevertheless that is a part of the competition and I had to except it the way it was. I knew it is not going to be the easiest thing to do, since I tend to think to much but I prepared for a long day.
Everything was going well with our girls doing excellent job and it was soon time for me to start warming up. At warm up I wasn’t really feeling fit and that somehow bothered me. Then I probably spent to much time watching other athletes on the route. I saw them fall on many parts of routes and got nervous not do to the same mistakes as they did.
With so many different things in my head I was finally up. I entered the route really insecure and the result was me falling low on the route, which only made me more nervous for the second one. The second one I managed to give my best in the given circumstances. I showed a proper fight, but my climbing as a whole was still super stiff and unrelaxed.
I finished the competition on 36th place, which really upset me. I don’t know if it was the waiting or simply desire to get into semifinals. I surely experienced new situation and I will analyse it and try to break down what was the deciding factor.
That concluded my last Asia trip of the season. Generally the whole trip was really fun, although I was not really satisfied with my climbing. Sometimes it is just not all about competitions but new experiences – there were many new. Therefore thanks to anyone who helped me share the experiences!
Now it’s time to head back home and focus on preparations for Toulouse. Let’s finish the season in style!
