Hey folks :-)
Last Saturday I participated in a boulderjam, hosted by the Unionhalle Graz, one of the smaller gyms in my hometown. It was the first time, the venue was held, therefore I didn't know what to expect. The first surprise was the high number of participants. Being the last climber who got a start number, the staff handed over to me a badge showing two fives. 55 participants in a gym of this size, that's a lot! Next, I glanced at the boulder problems. Actually they looked more challenging than I expected. Let me shortly explain the format of this comp: there are 2 qualifying rounds, in each round all the climbers can try 4 boulder problems, one round lasts 90 minutes and attempts are not counted, the only thing which is noted, is if you flash a problem or not. After 180 minutes of qualification there is one final round with 4 new problems and no isolation zone. In this round the climbers have 60 minutes climbing time. To sum up, there are 12 boulder problems, 8 for every participant and 4 more for the finalists.
The first round turned out to be relatively easy, I flashed two boulders and did two in my second go, so I had 4 tops with two flashes. The second round was tougher, there were two moderate problems and two hard ones. I flashed the two easier boulders and kept trying the two harder ones. One of them consisted of powerful moves on bad crimps and slopers in an overhang. After cutting my finger on one of the crimps I quit trying that one. The other one was more technical with a loooooong move to finish. I climbed it several times to the second to last hold but couldn't stick the top hold. I don't want to look for excuses, but I guess the last move was a little bit of a height issue. Finally I gave up on this one as well. Both of these boulder were only topped by Arnold Kristof who seemed to be in excellent shape. I finished the qualifying round with 6 tops of which 4 were flashes. This result was good enough for making it to the final.
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| One of the technical slabs in the qualifying round |
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| Crimping on the hard technical boulder in the 2nd round |
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| Luckily I know this volume :D |
After a short break the last round began. It seemed to be constructed like the second qualifying round: two problems of average difficulty and two hard ones. I flashed the 2nd final boulder, which was not so hard. Some technical moves lead to a triangular volume, followed by a small jump and an easy reach to the final jug.
Next, I flashed the 1st final boulder which was a technical slab with a strange start.
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| Matching the top hold of the 1st final boulder |
Then I started to try the 3rd final boulder which looked like the hardest one. My first impression turned out to be true. In the end, nobody managed to reach the upper edge of the wall, which marked the top of this problem.
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| Final boulder number three |
The 4th final boulder had a strange start with a weird stemming move. No finalist did it according to the routesetters' intention. Arnold Kristof was the only competitor who surpassed this passage, using a foothold as a handhold. I also tried his approach, but I was too stretched to move properly as soon as I reached for the foothold.
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| Stemming on the 4th final boulder |
With two flashes in finals I finished on the 2nd place behind Arnold Kristof who became well deserved first! Although I was pleased with the result I thought that the final boulders could have been a bit fine tuned and less reachy. Nevertheless, I reckon that the routesetters have done a good job! After the comp we all partied together and had a lot of fun :-) I hope that this event will be continued. Thanks a lot to Jakob Glasner who is the inventor of the innovative
Fingerschinder hangboard, (more coming soon :D) for taking some pics. In case you would like to see some more impressions of the comp, here is a
link.
Keep climbing!
Jakob
