On the 1st of August the GB Junior Bouldering Team met at the Works for last Team training before the Worlds. As soon as everyone arrived we were told that the morning would be set out as qualifiers for Arco, Italy. Timetables around the room said we had to be in isolation for 10:30 and then I had to be ready to climb for 11:25 others 13:15. Before we went to climb our blocs, everyone in their groups got to see a video of someone topping their blocs. Therefore having seen this it meant that the format wasn’t ‘5 on 5 off’ it would be ‘4on 4 off’ because we didn’t need the minute of viewing time. Then we walked down to the bottom left hand side of the comp wall ready to try our 4 blocs set as International climbs.
Bloc 1 was a slab with volumes on. I was incredibly shaky on it but after working out the sequence I topped it on my fourth go. Bloc 2 was from a jug in to an undercut, then reach up to a volume up again for the bonus and out left for the top. After working out what I needed the do with my feet and where I needed to go with my hands, I topped it 3rd go. 2/7 so far. The third climb I flashed to the last move, and had another go every minute, from 3.00, I seemed to get gradually lower! The fourth bloc was pretty straight forward, undercutting and leaning back off some slopers and bridging out on to some volumes I flashed this one. I finished qualifying with 3 tops in 8 tries so I pretty happy with that, I’ve learnt another tactic for qualies as well so I’ll bear that one in mind!
An exhausting morning followed by a chilled afternoon of just trying other peoples comp blocs, talking about the climbs with Diane Merrick and Dave Mason and then a few of us went around the centre to make up some crazy dynos and had a very ambitious game of add on which went to the top of the slab and back down again with only 5 different hand holds. The last move by me was a big drop down move, commitment needed for that one! Overall it was a great day, good to catch up with people I haven’t seen in a while and mainly just a fun day.
