World Cups + Recovering From Injury 2

Haiyang

After a solid week of training and sleeping back in the UK it was time to head out to China. I had never been to Asia so I was quite excited but also a little worried as I had only heard not that great things about China...

I had a nightmare trying to get my visa sorted out prior to leaving but eventually managed to get one with a day or two to spare. This was the longest flight I had to take for all the comps involving 2 layovers, one in Paris and one in Guangzhou China.

Flying into China

When we arrived in China the air was incredibly humid and you got a sweat on just standing still. After a long taxi ride we finally made it to the hotel. Haiyang was not at all what I expected. I had heard about the masses of people in china and not very good food, but in fact Haiyang was quite the opposite. There were loads of high rise flats with no one living in them. The whole city felt like the aftermath of a zombie apocolypse. With lots of construction going on and only a few people here and there, it was a bit strange to say the least. Then after suggestions of bringing my own food with me to China, (which I decided against) the food was great! A huge buffet for every meal with plenty to choose from. So not typical China I would say...

The boulders in the comp were fairly basic pull hard problems. It was quite hot during qualifiers but I felt good. I dropped a few boulders and came close to getting boulder 1 and 2 but I knew not many people were topping. It came to the last boulder and I was tired but knew this was the one to get. I pulled on and climbed to the top with relative ease. I topped a burly (ish) boulder! Well it was overhanging and not a slab at least...

When the round was over I checked the results and found out I had qualified for the semi-final. A great birthday present!

Photo by: Shauna Coxsey

The next day in isolation me and Shauna had both somehow misread the time for semis so I ended up only having 20 minutes or so to warm up. This definitely showed on the first boulder. I just couldn't engage my shoulder enough to press out on the volume. This was the boulder I thought I would have had the best chance at. It started raining half way through my rotation so I got to have a bit of extra time to rest which I was thankful for. I managed to get one bonus on the roof problem. It didn't really matter how I climbed because I had accomplished my overall goal for the season. To make a semi-final, and I was happy with that.

Laval

We arrived into Charles De Gaule Airport to be notified that our bags had been; "misplaced"... Great. I won't go into detail about how shit AirFrance were to us whilst we attempted to regain our bags over the following weeks. I still don't have my bag back yet. Anyway, after a couple of days training and wandering about Paris taking in some culture. We met up with Shauna's coach who drove us to Laval. 

View of Paris

It was great to be back in Laval, the town where I won my first international gold medal as a junior the previous year. It brought back some good memories. I got to meet some old friends who were also competing in Laval last year and we also had a much bigger team at this event. I always like the team vibe it definitely pushes me to climb harder.

Whilst warming up for qualis, my skin just disintegrated and fell off. This has never happened before and I was left asking myself "why now!" After a lot of chewing I got my fingers to a climbable level and carried on with my warm up.

The venue was much hotter than last year which was a big factor. Everything was quite sweaty and it was hard to keep your breathing down. There were a lot of competitors entered for this competition which meant we had to climb in two separate groups. I was in group B.

I was out fairly early on and cruised the first boulder. It felt really easy. The next 3 were a bit harder but I managed to reach the last move on all of them. The final boulder was a cool outward facing start, a little manoeuvring and a sideways jump to the finish. I surprised myself with another flash! Well psyched!

Photo by: Eddie Fowke (The Circuit)

Photo by: Eddie Fowke (The Circuit)

I definitely feel like I climbed my best in this competition compared to the other rounds. Once again, I didn't care where I placed, the fact I felt I climbed well was all that mattered to me.

Well that's it for now, the World Cups are over and back to work. Now it's time to train for the World Championships!

Hopefully I'll get my bag back at some point...

World Cups + Recovering From Injury

I am going to write 2 separate blogs for the World Cups. One for Toronto and Vail and the Other for Haiyang and Laval. This is just so I don't bore you with endless amounts of words.

As you may know, I injured my hand 3 weeks prior to the world cups. I tore the lumbrical muscles between my ring finger and little finger. This put me out of the first half of the season. Obviously I was devastated as I felt the strongest I'd ever felt. I knew I had to train safe and hoped that I would be able to maintain some strength and be able to compete later in the season. I set my self a goal to make a semi-final at least once, but I wouldn't mind if I didn't. this year was all about gaining experience.

Toronto

My hand recovered enough to start my season in Toronto (Canada), the 5th instalment of the World Cup Circuit. Before the competition we had a session at Climbers Rock with the Australian Team. We also went to see the incredible Niagara Falls! 

This was my first ever international competition as a senior, and I had a bit of first comp nerves. I went out after Ty Landman the only other Male climber competing for GB. The first problem was a vert 2 mover. I managed to top after a few drops of the last move. I was really happy; I had topped a World Cup boulder!

After that I got another bonus but struggled on all the rest of the boulders. It felt I gained a lot of experience from this first comp and I would apply it in the next one. Ty managed to make semis, and Shauna made finals. The crowd was amazing in Toronto. So loud and super psyched for everyone. Even clapping when someone fell off...

Photo by: Eddie Fowke (The Circuit)

On the way to the airport before leaving for the USA we managed to visit "Nathan Phillips Square".

Vail

From Canada we flew to Denver (USA) and drove to Boulder at 4000ft above sea level. On the first night I got to meet and have dinner with someone I had seen in climbing videos for years, Chris Schulte, along with a couple of really nice people who cooked and welcomed us into their home.

We spent a couple of days in Boulder where we had a session at the Spot Gym where I got to see how strong Daniel Woods and Carlo Traversi are in real life. They are very strong by the the way... Then we ate a lot of pancakes... Vail is 9000ft above sea level so before heading there we drove up Mt Evans, all the way up to 14000ft in the hope that when we got to Vail it wouldn't feel nearly as bad as up there. I really struggled with the altitude. I had a couple of nose bleeds and a really bad headache coming down from Mt Evans. I just had to make do.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=565880696866759&id=293931117395053

A short video of us climbing at the Spot Gym in Boulder. Video by: Shauna Coxsey

When we arrived we got upgraded to an amazing suite with 3 chandeliers! I had a 4 poster bed to myself!

The competition was part of the Go Pro Mountain Games so there was a lot of other events going on that we could watch such as the Slackline World Cup and Slopestyle Mountain Biking. Oh yeah and this weird contest involving dogs jumping into a paddling pool.

Anyway, time to compete! after being in isolation for 4 hours it was finally time to get on the wall. I felt more relaxed this time and felt good. I struggled on the first boulder but regained myself to get the bonus on the second. The third was a 360 campus on 2 finger pockets. I hadn't tested my hand on pockets in a while so I thought I'd give it a go gently. As soon as I started to weight it it really hurt and let go. I had to do the move off my front 2 fingers and did it next go. I reached the bonus several times but could not finish the boulder.the 4the was really hard and after a moment of stupidity not seeing the blue hold on the blue volume I topped the last problem. Another slab! Leaving this comp I knew what I wanted to do in the next comp. top a burly boulder!

Photo by: Eddie Fowke (The Circuit)

Before leaving America we headed out to Independence Pass with Chris and some other friends. And got to see the amazing ice caves. They were so cool and can only be expressed in full by actually seeing them in person. It rained so we went into Aspen for a hot chocolate then got to do a little bouldering when it dried up before getting snowed out. After all that we finished up with a greasy burger before leaving for the airport.

For now it was back to the UK for training and much needed sleep.

Haiyang and Laval blog will be up in a few days.