Nordic Championships Turku

Last weekend the Nordic Championships in boulder were arranged in Turku for the first time. These were also my first Nordic Championships in boulder. The competition started at Saturday morning when the qualification was held. The system in which the qualification was held was totally new for me, so I was a little lost in the beginning. The competitors climbed in a certain order and everyone started with the first route. Then you had five minutes time to climb the first route, then five minutes of rest and then five minutes on each of the following routes. It surprised me how abruptly the climbing ended when the time was out. Normally you are allowed to finish your last try when time is out but now you had to come down immediately. On the second route I only managed to get one hand to the top when the judge blew the whistle so the top wasn’t counted. I was quite pissed but luckily it didn’t affect the final results.

 All routes both in the qualification and the finals were really nice. The routes in the finals could have been a bit harder, though, because in the end the differences were really small.

 Now the next important competition is the Nordic Championships (in route climbing this time). They will be arranged in Stavanger in a month. I have to change my training and start training endurance a lot more. Today we were in Salmisaari to train some route climbing and it actually felt quite good, so I am hopeful :)