OLYMPIC GAMES 2020(Tokyo)

Sport climbing combines 3 disciplines: boulder, lead & speed. Normally in a world cup, they are all treated separately. But not at the Olympics… At the olympic games it will be represented as a whole in a form of combined discipline and the climber with the best multiplier from each discipline will be the champion.

Why the combined format?

I must say that I don’t really know the cause to this decision. As most of climbers were competing at either only speed or boulder and lead. You can imagine that there was little few that were happy with the format and many known climbers protested against it. But as the time past and the qualifications for olympic games coming in fast it was time to stop pretending and start training.

So here we are, all ready to give everything in order to have a best shot at performing in Tokyo 2020.

Combined & me

I’ve always loved lead and bouldering, speed? Meh.. not so much. The only time I competed at speed was when I was around 10 years old on a route that was different every time competition took place… so nothing like the world cup speed.

Since back when I started climbing the only infrastructure we had was either a bouldering wall or a lead wall. In Slovenia we got our first speed wall in 2018, so I think it’s hard to say that you don’t like something if you haven’t even tried it for real. It’s similar to tasting food. Some people will tell you it’s not good just by looking at it, some will try it once and be disappointed. But there is always a selected few that try it a few times before they decide whether it’s good or not.

I feel like I’m in the last group when it comes to speed climbing. The idea of speed climbing for me was mostly shaped by opinions of others. Fortunately I am stubborn and I have to test everything for myself. Opinion of others is usually not enough for me and sometimes this is a bad thing.

Not this time! I felt the same way when I started speed climbing, at first I wasn’t impressed by the route but after a couple of runs I started to get the hang of it. It took me a few sessions to realize that speed is also helpful in other two disciplines and that it can be great addition to my normal training routine.

Right now speed is FUN.

Indoor & Outdoor

In the last years I’ve been mostly focusing on indoor climbing as I wanted to be as ready as I can for the competitions. It’s hard to say how that will change this year. Training three disciplines takes even more time than in the past years. Nevertheless I definitely want to try and send some hard stuff outdoor. The thing I learned from last season was that if you focus on just one thing for too long time and then fail to fulfill your expectations it’s just going to go downwards from there. Outdoor climbing would serve as a from of relaxation for me and combined with the psyche to send, I think it can lead to something great.

It’s time to make it happen it!

It’s gonna be one hell of a year. The athlete poll is huge and everyone is going to be trying their hardest to make the quota. Nevertheless it’s important to keep believing in yourself and keep pushing forward, whether or not you make it, you’ll end up a better climber either way.

If you have any follow up questions hit me up in the comments or find me on my social media.

#TheOnlyWayIsUp!