It consists of 3 disciplines: speed, bouldering and lead. With climbing being a new addition to the Tokyo 2020 oylmpic games it will feature the following format. There will be only 20 climbers from all over the world qualifying for the event and top 8 will be given another chance in the final round.
The round consists of a knockout round in speed. It is almost completely similar to the world cup final round. Then it follows a bouldering round, with only 3 boulders. Apart from that it is the same as bouldering world cup final. It all ends with one lead route.
That is roughly it, now let’s see how first Slovenian combined nationals took place.
Qualifications
The competition took place in Celje. The only place in Slovenia with a speed wall. It lasted for 3 straight days, starting with a qualification rounds in all three disciplines on friday and sunday. After finishing every discipline you got your final score. Score is equal to the multiplier of results in each discipline. And yes, lower score wins!
First day
It all started with regular speed competition. First practice (you get the chance to climb speed route 2 times), then everyone sets their best time and we get overall results based on the time.
I was quite happy with my performance, as I set new PB 8.2s. It is surely nothing special, but it is a sign of improvement. Therefore I finshed 4th in speed ranking and later in the afternoon it was time for the bouldering round.
Bouldering round consisted of 4 problems for which you had 5 minutes to climb. It was a super close round, leaving me on 2nd place for only 1 zone try. Anyway that left me with a multiplier of 8 (4×2), by the end of day 1
Second day
Saturday was a day for lead. We only had 1 route so it was a fairly relaxed day.
I knew that I was in good position after first two rounds so I just wanted to climb as smooth as possible, focusing on breathing and accurate climbing. Although I didn’t want to be nervous, it was really hard for me to completely let go, as I had been especially focusing on lead in the past two weeks. It’s always so hard to say: “It doesn’t matter how I perform”. I think you would be lying to yourself.
Nonetheless the I finished the route in style. Topping it was something speacial for me. Not only it showed that my training is paying off, but it was also great to clip the top chain after a really long time. I think it was 6 years ago, when I last topped a route on nationals.
Qualification round finished with a multiplier of 8 (4x2x1). It was enough for 2nd place and it meant that I have one more day of climbing ahead of me. This time the olympic combined!
Third day – combined finals
Everyone feeling a bit exhausted from the last two days of climbing gathered together for one more round. We all knew the format, but we were all curious how it would look competing in all three disciplines in one day.
Although many people thought combined format is not going to be fun, because who likes to climb speed? Nevertheless I found it really fun and tense. It was neck to neck down to the last discipline.
Anyway I finished the combined competition on 3rd place with my multiplier being 40 (5x2x4). The result was quite good, but I can’t say the same for my climbing.
I was really feeling well that day, althouh I already had quite some climbing behind me. The biggest problem was my head. It was a struggle to remain calm in each discipline and in the end it really came down to small mistakes. I really wasn’t climbing smoothly and I undetermined, there were constant mistakes…
I could go on and on, about where it all went wrong, why it went wrong and how that affected my final result… but no. It is already behind me and nobody can change the outcome, so it is pointless to still think about it. The most important thing that you can take out of situations like this is realizing the moment when it all went wrong and find a solution how to fix it, next time when you are in the similar situation.
I find it natural to be dissapointed when you just finished with your climbing. After all you train hard every day to achieve your goal, it would be strange if you weren’t dissatisfied. And after that stage it is time to analyze, acknowledge and fix the problem.
For me the first two parts are already behind me and now I am looking forward to new situations like this to see if I can react differently.
Outro
That’s a wrap, first combined nationals in the bag and a 3rd place. Not bad for a boulderer ;). Hopefully you enjoyed reading it and now it’s almost time to see if my lead training is going to pay off.
Coming back in two weeks with some more info about that!
