Montag, 4. November 2013

Italian Championship 2013

Well, this was an interesting competition yesterday in Modena. The qualification went quite well and so I ended as first in the final. I didn't know who was joining me in the final and as I found out, that I was joined by other 14 people I was totally shocked. 10 people flashed one problem and so they all got into the final as 6th. 15 people in a final?? I had never seen something like this before.
The head judges decided to do the final with the semifinal formula, 4 min climbing, 4 min rest, because with the classical final formula it would have taken an eternity.
I started well by flashing the first two problems. The third one caused me some problems but eventually I did it in my fifth try. The last one was looking amazing but unfortunately it turned out to be too hard and so I couldn't climb it. With 3 tops in 7 attempts I thought I would be second, but immediately after the last boulder Steve told me that we both have the same amount of tops and attempts, and so I won because of count back to the qualification.
This victory is definitely one of the most amazing ones also because my amazing girlfriend managed to win too. Italian Champions. Yeah =)


Mittwoch, 24. Juli 2013

EYC and Pontives

Yesterday I came home from L' Argentiere where we competed in the second European Youth Bouldering Cup. The comp went quite well and eventually I managed to win in front of my friend Alex Khazanov and Nathan Phillips.

For our little Tito

Even if I had no skin, today I decided to go to Pontives for a quick session on the roof project. I thought I would be too tired to climb the problem but somehow I managed to fight my way through the roof doing the first ascent of yet another amazing boulder in Pontives.

FA of "Regentanz"


Mittwoch, 17. Juli 2013

Time to leave home!

Yesterday I was in Pontives again to finish off this project I've brushed and tried lately. Since I had the pads under the "Lose Yourself" bloc, I decided to quickly try a boulder on the right hand side which hasn't been climbed yet. It is just a little 5 move boulder and I managed to climb it after about half an hour.

FA of "Stehaufmännchen", to the right or "Lose Yourself" and "Creativity"


















I then walked the way up to the project. After trying the topout and failing once from the start, all of my sudden my brother called me and said that he is in the forest searching me.
I explained him the way and so he reached me after a couple of minutes. With my brother watching me I set off for another try and I had success. Finally I was sitting on top of this amazing boulder problem which was in my mind since I saw it for the first time. I guess I will take my brother with me more regularly. Thanks bro for the support =)

nice view at the "Traumpfeiler"
Today I went back again to the "Traumpfeiler" to take some lessons in slab climbing =). I decided to try this route called "L Julon", which was supposed to be quite hard. The route consists of 4 pitches. The first one is an easy one; followed by the crux pitch and the third as well as the fourth are not as hard as the second one but still quite hard.
Eventually I managed to climb the second pitch on my second go and I fought my way through the third and the fourth pitch onsighting both, what made me really happy.  
As always it was really nice to climb on the Traumpfeiler and I'm hoping that I slightly improved my slab climbing abilities.

As you can read I'm just climbing around my home right now. For sure it is one of the most amazing places I know, but I'm slowly getting bored and I'm really looking forward to leave home and go climbing somewhere else.

Dienstag, 9. Juli 2013

Why I love climbing

Climbing is AWESOME.
Why, are you asking? Well I'll try to explain it to you.
A little more than a week ago I was in Sofia competing in the EYC, the past weekend I went bouldering in Pontives and today I climbed a multipitch route on the big Sella massif. All this things are pretty different. In Sofia I climbed in a competition with people from every different parts of Europe. In Pontives I worked on my project again, together with Ale and my little brother. And today I climbed 9 pitches alternating the lead with my father.
The one thing that combines these three different experiences is the climbing. But it's not the climbing itself what I love about climbing. What I really love about climbing is the combination of climbing as a sport and all the various possibilities that are connected to this amazing sport.
You get to see different countries. You get to climb with so many different people. You can go sport climbing, bouldering, multipitch climbing, in the gym, on little boulders, on 50 meter cliffs, on huge big walls. You can climb onsight, you can project things, you can climb toprope, if you are crazy enough you can also climb free solo. Whatever. There are so many options you can choose from, if you're about to go climbing. And exactly that's what I love about climbing.    

Freitag, 5. Juli 2013

"Rock or plastic ?" Part II

The last few weeks have been quite busy so I had not that much time to update this blog but to be honest this is just an excuse for the fact that I've simply been too lazy. I just came home from one of the many competitions and because I've some time now I forced myself to write a new blog post.

Ale making the second ascent of this beautiful line in Schenna

Between all the competitions I took part lately, luckily I found some time to get to climb on some rock. I went to Schenna twice, where I am always amazed by the amount of climbed problems and projects that still have to be climbed. With a couple of friends we managed to do a few amazing first ascents and climbed some of the already existing boulders.
The new landing
Since the bouldering area in Schenna is kind of "secret" there is no guide book or no topo and consequently most of the boulders are not even graded. So basically you get there and you climb whatever is inspiring you. That's what makes Schenna so special for me.

Moreover I finally had the opportunity to go to Pontives again. Since I climbed "Lose Yourself" I've not been in Pontives anymore, perhaps also because I had no real project, and so I was motivated to brush some new lines and hopefully also climb them. Eventually I decided to finish cleaning this awesome, tall line, which my friend Martin Dejori and I started cleaning already about two years ago. After spending three days into building a decent landing and brushing off all the moss, I finally started trying the boulder. I haven't climbed the problem yet, but Rudi, who tried the boulder with me, managed to climb the left exit, adding a new 5 star line to the area.

As I already mentioned, I had a lot of competitions in the last few weeks, including an Italian Cup in Ivrea, the Italian Youth Championship in Arco, two World Cups in Kitzbühel and Log Dragomer, the European Youth Championship in Grindelwald and the Climbo. The last one was the European Youth Cup in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. Unfortunately there were missing most of the strong guys so I knew that it wouldn't be difficult to get into finals. After a good qualification round I was sitting in first place having done all the 8 boulders.
The finals on the day after where as good as the qualifications, and I managed to cope with the pressure winning in front of my friends David Firnenburg from Germany and Alex Khazanov from Israel.

Qualification round
Second boulder in the final

Dienstag, 28. Mai 2013

Rock or plastic?

The last weekend I went to Grindelwald for the first European Youth Championship in bouldering.
Since I felt quite strong in the last training sessions I went to the competition beeing confident and motivated to do a good performance. Unfortunately it turned out that I'm not that strong at all. I did an absolutely heinous performance on Saturday in the qualification and finished in 9th place.
So no final =(
On Sunday we watched our team mates, who qualified for the finals, and then we drove back home.
At about 18:30 we were in Merano and I wanted to do a quick session on my project in Algund. The conditions were actually perfect: around 15 degrees and a cold wind was blowing. Since there is no easy boulder on this bloc I had to get warm on the project. I climbed the topout once, tried the moves in the middle twice and then I did a try from the start. I didn't get the second hold well and I fell off. I gave a quick brush at the holds and then I already went for the next try.
Every move felt super easily and 15 minutes after we got to the boulder I was already on top of it. Actually it was supposed to be my project, but it felt more like a boulder on which I use to get warm. So apparently I am quite in a good shape, but just on rock. I definitely should not complain about this, but I still have to compete in some competitions and I want to climb well in them. Unfortunately the strength I have on rock doesn't help me much in those comps.
But ok. In the upcoming summer the main focus will be on rock climbing so it's ok if I am not feeling that strong on the plastic holds right now =).

Dienstag, 7. Mai 2013

Climbo 2013

Well, with the World Cup in Kitzbühel, this year's competition season has started.
This past Saturday the "Climbo", a traditional bouldering competition in South Tyrol, was held in the Salewa gym in Bolzano. The Climbo is always an amazing competition and a good opportunity to meet a lot of friends. So I was really excited to get to climb with many nice people and to give my best in the comp.
The last few years I've always been super motivated and confident to climb well, but this year it was a little different. Of course I was super motivated but actually not that confident to do a good performance. Why? Well, I'll explain you why.

About a month ago I found out that Sido, a super famous German rapper, would come to Brixen. Obviously I didn't want to miss out such an amazing event (which eventually turned out not to be that amazing at all) but as luck would have it, the date of the event was the 3rd of Mai, the day before the Climbo would take place. Consequently I thought that I would not be in a good shape the day of the competition and I had to accept that. Fortunately I was totally wrong.

I went through the qualification round feeling strong and not even a little bit tired. I made one stupid mistake which cost me the first position, but I also knew that I had the chance to make up for this little mistake in the final.
After hanging out in the sun, eating an awesome burger, drinking a beer and playing cards, my fingers started to sweat because I couldn't wait to finally climb the final.
The time in isolation was as boring as always. I did a good warm up session and felt ready to crush!

First boulder                                                                       (c) Egle Kirdulyte


















First boulder: flash. Second boulder: flash. Third boulder: third go.
I was sitting in first place after the first three problems with one more top than Steve, who was in second.
When we went out to have a look at the boulders, before the final started, the last problem was looking quite easy. So I knew that I would just have to climb this last boulder to win, what made me even more nervous.

Second boulder                                                                 (c) Egle Kirdulyte


















The time passed and finally it was my turn. I brushed the holds and went for a good flash go. All of a sudden I had to struggle with a move, which I thought would be easy, and fell off the wall. Oh no!! I absolutely had to climb this boulder problem. I thought to be sure that I would be able to climb it, but now I was struggling with a move which seemed to be an easy one. Ok, I just had to keep calm.

                                  (c) Egle Kirdulyte
The next go was as frustrating as the one before and the time was running out. I jumped onto the problem for the next try with a minute left on the clock. I fell off again on the same move but I found out a little trick to make the move easier. I had time to make one last try.

I was totally pumped and extremely tired. My fingertips were almost bleeding and my body was sore. Nevertheless I was happy. Yes, I was super happy. Sitting on top of the fourth problem in front of an amazing crowd, knowing that I had won, was one of the feelings I'll never forget. The last two years there has always been missing a little bit of luck to win the Climbo and now I had finally won this competition. What an amazing feeling!!

The winner in the girls category was Andrea Ebner and apparently it is a good idea to go out the night before a competition as she was at the Sido concert too =)



On the last boulder                                            (c) Egle Kirdulyte


















The Climbo was a cool event and the next weekend I'll already be climbing my next competition, my second World Cup in Log Dragomer. It is nice to be allowed to take part at all these comps but what I'm really looking forward to is some rock. Hopefully I will find some time in between all the days I'm spending on plastic, to get to climb outside again.

Montag, 29. April 2013

First World Cup

Last weekend I had the opportunity to partecipate at my first World Cup, which was held in Kitzbühel, a well known village about 100 km east of Innsbruck.
As it was my first World Cup I set my expectations pretty low and thought that without any pressure I would climb quite well. As a matter of fact I did not climb well. Without beeing nervous I messed up everything I could and I can not even explain why. But ok, it was my first World Cup and hopefully the next ones will go better.
A part of my personal competition the World Cup was an amazing event. The organisation was perfect and it was awesome to see the worlds best competition climbers doing what they do best.
It's been an new and cool experience in Kitzbühel and I really can't wait to give my best in the next World Cup.

Mittwoch, 27. März 2013

South France, Italian Cup and Algund

Hello everybody.

Well, I have to admit that I've been way too lazy to write anything on this blog in the last few weeks, even though I would have had to tell quite a lot of things!

First of all the one-week-trip to South France about a month ago.
We were lucky enough to have a week with perfect weather and so we got the opportunity to get to see a lot of different amazing crags.

                                                                                                                                                               (c) Martin Dejori
The first day we went to Castillon, a crag which is situated right after the Italian border. The climbing there is actually really good. There is a wide range of difficult routes and we had a nice day although it was a little bit too cold.

For the second day of our trip the weather forecast was really bad, and unfortunately the meteorologist was right. So what do you do on rest days?? Exactly! You spent the whole day eating everything you get. Our lunch consisted of: a big bread at the "Subway" restaurant, a Kebab and a Mc Flurry at Mc Donald's =)

                                                                                                                                                         (c) Martin Dejori


The plan for our next day was to drive from Nice to Marseilles and on the road we will have a stop at Cimai, a historical crag where Lynn Hill wrote history by doing the first female ascent of an 8b+ route (Masse Critique).
We had a beautiful day there and on the evening we moved on to Marseilles where we spent our next few days.

                                     (c) Marvin Kobald
                                       (c) Marvin Kobald

                     



















A part of all the traffic in Marseilles we also got to see the amazing amount of rock in the Calanques. We had the best weather you can imagine and we managed to climb some superb lines.

                                                                                                                                                         (c) Marvin Kobald
The last two days we went to Chateauvert. All in all I have to say that this was the crag which inspired me most. The rock quality and the quality of the routes there is just so unbelievably amazing, every movement is just perfect (except of some chipped routes. I really don't understand why you have to chip routes in such an amazing crag).

Unfortunately a week on a climbing trip is definitely passing to fast, and so the end of the trip came far too early. However, the short week in France was awesome and I'm really looking forward to another trip like this.












About three weeks ago I participated at the first Italian Cup of this season, which took place in Milano. I have not been competing for a really long time so I had no expectations for this comp.
In the semifinal round I managed to climb 3 of 4 problems, but as I climbed really bad I was sure that I would not make it into the finals. I was even more surprised as I saw the rankings of the semifinals. I was sitting on the second position right behind my good friend Rudi, who was the only one to climb all 4 problems. Not believing that I really made it into the finals I went into the isolation zone.
The finals were set a little bit too easy so it came down to the attempts. I did all 4 boulders but I messed up the last one, which took me 4 tries to climb it. I ended up in 4th position. Rudi won the competition easily by flashing all the problems. Congrats man =)


Competition climbing can be fun, but what I really love about climbing is still, and will ever be, the rock climbing. So I went to Algund last Friday with Alexandra to jump on some unfinished business. Unfortunately Ale could not climb because she has some problems with her wrist again. She has been injured for way too long the last years and I really hope that it is not that serious again. All the best Ale!
For my part I finally managed to climb this boulder called "The Opportunist". I had to try it for quite a while also because initially I didn't know where it exactly starts. Once I found that out it still took me some time to find the right beta.
This time I knew that I can climb it and with Ales support I fought my way through the 17 moves all the way to the top out. As this is kind of my anti-style boulder I was even happier that I managed to climb this cool line.

Well, that's all for this time. Hopefully I will be able to update my blog more regularly in the next time.
Cheers!    

Mittwoch, 23. Januar 2013

Christmas holidays

 It's been a while since my last blogpost and a lot of things happend, but all I want to speak about now are the Christmas holidays.

My first goal of these holidays was the unfinished business in Pontives. I still had a project out there which I really wanted to climb because I was already trying it for a really long time. Since I found this boulder, cleaned it and started trying it back in the summer of 2011 this line kept always in my head. Last March, after a lot of work, I finally managed to climb the stand start wich I called "Lost Illusion". I was really happy about that, but I knew that, if I wanted to be satisfied and in peace with this boulder, I have to climb the sit. So I started working on it, but in the summer it was simply way too hot to even try it so I forgot it for a little while.
And then, after the long summer and the even longer fall, the temperatures finally dropped, the conditions became better and I could start trying it again.
It was the day of Christmas Eve and my family wanted to go swimming, but come on... swimming... on Christmas Eve???? No thanks!! I wanted to go bouldering. I wanted to go out into the forest and finally finish off this line I've been dreaming about since I saw this piece of rock for the first time. And that's what I did. Standing on top of this beautiful boulder, after investing so much time into it was the best Christmas gift imaginable.
FA of "Lose Yourself"

After all the Christmas celebrations it was time to leave home and go bouldering again. Destination: Cresciano and Chironico.
I've spent a week in Cresciano already last February and surprisingly I left without many unfinished projects, so I had nothing to finish with on this trip. But I had a ton of new stuff to try.
At the end of the trip I left Cresciano by having tried almost every single classic line. That doesn't mean that I have climbed a lot of them too, no no, quite the contrary... it means that I have climbed none of them. La Pelle, La Proue, La Boule, Gecko, Last Samurai, La nave va, Dreamtime, Le vent sombre... all boulders I tried and don't even got close on most of them.
Trying "The Dagger"
Another boulder I tried and had no success on was The Dagger. The Dagger is one of those lines I've always wanted to climb since I saw it for the first time. So I decided to put some effort into that one. Well, all in all I tried The Dagger for about an hour on our second day and for other fifteen minutes on our last day. I managed to find a good beta for the second part and the end of the boulder which felt quite easy but I didn't found a beta for the start. I'm quite confident to climb this boulder once I'll find the beta to climb the first few moves, so I'm pretty syked to go back to Cresciano and jump onto this amazing line again.
As I already mentioned our plan was not only to climb in Cresciano but in Chironico too. So we went to Chironico on the 31st (my birthday =) ) and on our penultimate day of the trip. In Chironico I felt stronger than in Cresciano, maybe because the climbing style fits me better or maybe because it was colder in there... I don't know. I also managed to climb a few nice lines in Chironico such as Souvenir, Komilator, Walker on earth, Serre moi fort, Les cliques a claques and La vent nous portera.

playing around on some easier stuff

 A boulder Rudi and I got close on and I really want to try again, is Freak Brothers. I tried this boulder already last year but I had no chance on it. I thought that this time I would be stronger and perhaps I would have a chance to climb it. As we started trying it I had to accept that once again I was to week for the boulder, till I tried this other beta with the heel hook. All of a sudden I managed to match the crimper and jump up to the lip. I had no chance to hold the swing but this step forward, just matching the crimper and pull on, was really important for my mind and my motivation. But as it was already really dark and we had no idea how to come back to our car, we had to start searching the way back to it before our phones and headlamps would stop working. Freak Brothers is for sure on the really top of the to-do list for our next Chironico trip. With many other amazing boulders I didn't managed to climb on this trip =)

Climbing "Walker on earth


Nightsession on "Freak Brothers"