1st place at the Belgian bouldering Championship

Well, as I said in my last post, yesterday were held the finals for the bouldering senior title. I won the competition but it was not without counting on a bit of luck.
The format was 4problems with 4minutes in each.

The first bloc was pretty easy and many sent. Second problem was maybe a bit too long and it was finishing by some tricky moves on a slab... I couldn't do that one and only Nicolas Farcy did it with a onsight ascent. For now he was on the lead with 2blocs done, one second try and one first try. I was second with one onsight.

The third bloc was pretty hard like 7c and it was my style but I was too pumped from the second one too manage the crux move. Nobody sent so last bloc would decide who'd win.
It was an easier problem and I think two people sent before it was Nicola's turn to climb. I knew he would do it and thereby secure the title but that didn't happen... He missed a hold at the end and couldn't send. For now I knew I would have to flash to win so that would give me 2 blocs onsight and 1 for nico only + 1 second go.
The bloc wasn't so hard and I sent it pretty easily without pressure, a bit sad to win in such a way.
So podium is
3rd place : Nicolas Mathieu
2nd place : Nicolas Farcy

The comp was well organized although maybe it'd been better if we'd been able to climb earlier ( finals were from 8 to 10:30 )
So it wasn't a big victory for me as it was really tight and I'm a bit disappointed I couldn't give my best on the 3rd bloc but I think I was just not in the best shape at that moment but at the end it turned out pretty good for me.
I'm also sad that my friend Raf only made fourth place because he was really strong but just had sent 2 blocs with two tries more than me and one zone less. So it was really about tries to making it onto the podium.

I should now be selected to compete in the world cups but I don't know if I will because I just feel not good enough I mean I am strong and stuff but all the strategy about the competing thing is not my best field, it's hard to climb on fixed hours and the qualification in world cups are mainly in the morning and there's just no way I can be strong in the morning so I don't see the point to travel to send a couple of boulders and not even making it into semi finals because I know I don't have the technical skills world cups require. I will see about the whole thing later now I will try to study a bit :p

Give you my bests, Oli

Belgian Championship this saturday.

Just a little post to let people now that takes place on this saturday the Belgian bouldering championship.
It is the first time I compete for the title after many years of bouldering. I've basically always skipped the comps finding them boring especially because they always start early and I am definitely not a morning climber...
So this year I decided to attend as many comp as I can and for now it's been going on pretty well winning most of those I've attended. I must say that the Piatra open and the Peter Belien memorial I won were kind of sweet as I did win some cash :)

Me having fun in the second stage of qualifications.

Anyway this saturday will see 9 climbers who qualified fight each other for the title.

Nicolas Mathieu
Raphael Fernandez
Jurgen Lis
Jerome deboeck
Marius Oniga
Nicolas Farcy
Tanguy Vandermeersch
And Me

It is going to be a 4problems comp, 5minutes per person in each. I really hope the route setters will make a good work by opening not too easy problems like it happened last event where all the problems were like 7a-7a+ so you had to onsight all of them to win...
This year, we have trained, I don't know for the other but Nico, Raph and I trained for this comp and we want to make a good show and we are strong enough to climb in harder problems so let's hope the route setters will open non morphological problems and not too easy ones.
Anyway I look forward to it and really hope I will be able to climb well, thus hoping there will not be any hard mantles which I really suck at :(

So this week, I will try to prepare well for the comp, something I never really did as I always taken comps as games, meaning not especially sleeping a lot before or eating well...
But this time although I feel strong, there are people who can win ahead of me so if I want to win this one I will have to do so...
So here is the goal for this week

-Bed time on 22H30 max ( 22h optimal )
-Eating soup at dinner to loose extras kilos I've got on
-drink a lot of water ( 2,5-3l a day )

We shall see saturday if it pays off :)