EYBC - L'Argentiere - France - 2012

Three weeks ago the last round of the European Youth Bouldering Championships was drawing near and it was time to start packing. Between the last one and this; I had upped my training because I knew I needed to get stronger. So when it came to the comp I was feeling pretty good.

The comp was held in L’Argentiere France where I had been twice before. It helped a lot to know the area and to know where the supermarkets were. It was boiling the whole time we were there and I wasn’t complaining as I love the heat. On the day of the qualifiers I managed 3 tops and was close to 3 or 4 others. Only me and one other managed to get all the bonuses which made me feel a bit better about my result. I ended up in 13^th place. I thought I could have done a bit better but after seeing my overall European Junior ranking at 10^th, I thought that was pretty good. It was nice to see Dave Barrans and Ellie Howard cheering me on in the crowd.

Whilst at the comp we met some really nice people who put us up for a night on our last day there. The final was really good to watch however much I wanted to be doing it. Hopefully next year it won’t be just me going from Britain.

British Team Training

So after the BBC’s; I was having a chat with Nick Clements (the manager of the British Bouldering Team) who was really impressed with my result, as was I. And I ended up getting an invitation to go and train with the team at Boulder UK in Blackburn.

On the day I turned up to see most of the team there and we got stuck straight in. First of all we did 5 or 6 problems that Ian Vickers and Jamie Cassidy had set for the team to try. We went round in pairs and I was with Gaz Parry. I did all the problems which I was surprised with as I thought I would struggle to get any.

After that I had another chat with Nick and he mentioned the possibility of doing some competitions across Europe and maybe a round of the world cup. I was so shocked when he told me this but happily shocked as I didn’t think I was that good.

Then we did a couple of circuits which were pretty damn hard, but I still enjoyed it. After that I sat and listened in on the team talk discussing things like the new arrangements for the BBC’s and similar things. At the end of the day Nick invited me to another training session at City Bloc in Leeds and somewhere else in Preston. I gladly accepted and am pretty happy with the day overall.

This is a late update from late January