1st place at Piatra Open

Hi everybody, as stated in my last post, I was invited to the Piatra open which took part in Romania. It was a competition similar to the worldcup ( 5blocs in qualification, 5in finals).

It was set outside in the local park, which I must say is always better than to go in a closed gym where you can’t breathe and especially inhale a lot of chalk.

                                        The set up for the comp in the local park

It was my first time in Romania and I have to admit that I am pleased, of course we didn’t get to see the real life there but the place was friendly. People here are really sympathic. We were three Belgians invited ( Nicolas Mathieu, Yannick Marchand the bouldering Belgian champion and I ) and along with us were also invited two Romanians who live in Belgium ( Gabriel and Marius ).

Yannick before going for the last hold in finals

We were kindly invited to stay in Oli’s house, the organizer and main route setter of the comp and also the bouldering Romanian champion.

About the comp, it was mainly sponsored by one guy , he paid the cash prize and 90pc of the expenses of the competition required from his own money. It’s nice to see that people who make good money out of their job can invest it into something really interesting and have a lot of people to enjoy it in some way.

Me in the second qualification bloc

  

So the qualification were really good, the problems were great and although I only topped 2 out of the five proposed I qualified myself in the finals on the 1^st rank.

All the blocs I couldn’t climb made me realize how small my climbing repertoire is, I really lack technique and know how to if you know what I mean…

The finals were really hard, I couldn’t do the first 2 moves in the first two blocs so at that point I was really frustrated not having done anything. I guess I must train with slopers because I really hate those, especially the big triangular volumes…

 An other pic of me in qualification

Anyway at that point I wanted to give up but the next blocs went better and eventually I won the comp ahead of a Bulgarian who definitely would have won if the 3^rd bloc had not been a bit reachy…

It was hard to me to win a comp in such circumstances with only one top out of five blocs but a win’s a win…

 Nico in the first final problem

Next day, pleased with a bank account bigger of 500euros, we headed to a local bouldering area, deep into a forest on a mountain.

I expected something quite rubbish but I was surprised by the Romanian sandstone and see how good it actually is.

With my tips quite aching and pink, I took it gently and went for the easiest problems at first. I climbed a 6b mantle, which I am really proud of, as it is totally my anti style, I did a perfect 7a on slopers with an easy mantle (for me easy mantle means hard mantle…).

 One pic from Sihla so you can see what it looks like.

After, we headed for more serious business, we got to this perfect looking 7c which is a 4 meters high arête with some holds on the right. I managed to send the stand version after a while and went to climb another 7a, which took me a long time (damn I hate having bad skin). After that my friends decided to go back to the 7c I’d done before so I thought ok there’s this lower start yet to be climbed so why not try it?

I re-warmed up in a really nice 6c, almost broke the jug at the end, which would have caused me serious injuries if it had broken but fortunately it didn’t.

Oli started to attempt it and I followed his lead. It’s actually a one move into the 7c start which relies on a good crimper left hand and a sloppy feature in a gaston like position with a left heel hook on the left side of the arête then followed by a match and a cross move to get in the 7c start position.

 Here's a pic of the bloc on which I made FA of "Waiting for Oniga Low start"

The crux of the 7c is at the end, it consists in a right hand sidepull with a high left step on the arete till you reach an ok hold on the arete. Once you reach this position you bring a right foot in the starting hold and get your left foot higher so you can throw in an undercling with your right hand. After that it’s just one more move to a sloper then it’s over.

I made the first ascent of this one and think it is around 7c+/8a but I don’t really know as I am really not in my best shape right now (I must state that we took advantage of the low costs life here and pleased ourselves with some good food).

I am really pleased of this trip and can’t wait to come back try all the other lines with good skin. There are here a lot of perfect lines on arêtes, highballs, hard short projects etc.

The plan is now to rest for some time, let the body recover from all the climbing and abuse of food…

My next trip will probably be in Magic Wood (won’t be a long trip though) to film the hardest sends I’ve made so far.

Have fun, Oli

2 news, one bad and one good.

Well it's been a while since my last post. I have gotten back to school so I haven't been climbing a lot and also because of, as I said in my last post, some arm pain. Well that is the bad news, it's not really gotten better and I am feeling worse than I was in magic. I suspect this to be a tendinopathy as I can still climb but when really fighting it gets  really hot in my arm and a bit painful. I had taken some rest after magic and it got better but now it's gotten a bit worse so I will have to take a break for some time.

 That was the bad news. The good is and I forgot to mention it, during my trip in magic wood I caught up with some Romanians friends and they invited me along with my friend Nico to the Piatra Open which will be going on this week end. It actually consists in an indoor comp and and outdoor event to discover local bouldering areas. I'm very syked about it and despite my arm have decided it would be my last session before I feel cured.

So after this comp I will quit climbing as long as it take for my arm to heal perfectly. I hope it doesn't take more than one month to heal but I hope I can climb again  after 2weeks in routes without going too hard.
I will keep my blog updated during the comp and try to add some photos.

Climb hard and keep the psyche on, Olivier

The never ending story

So as I told in my last post I was really close from sending the “never ending story”, it’s now a done thing as I managed to send it on my second attempt after taking a bad fall and injuring my left foot. Hopefully things are ok I’ll just check with my physiotherapist.

So about the problem, it in in fact a combination of two problems, two parts, the first one being 8a+ and the second 8a or more 7c+ in my opinion. I’d done the second part quite quickly, it was one of my firsts in the 8^th grade but the first part took me quite a while. I tried it over a few trips, always being unlucky with betas so I finally sent it one year ago after again lots of tries.

The problem is around 16 moves long but it really feels like a route for me who has no endurance. As I said it was kind of a backup project, very good to be tried after remembrance cause you need absolutely no skin to try it, so it was perfect. I tried it maybe around four or five sessions, I first got myself setup in the first part until it become really easy then I started to try the first part again. It almost took me three sessions to be able to send it again, the session I first sent it, I did it three times and fell all the time at the first move of the second part which relies in a two hands position in a roof with a right heel hook quite close to your right hand and you then have to do this deadpoint stab into an edge. I thought that when I’d do that move I’d send the problem but obviously no as I fell once and then only sent in a really big fight as I caught almost all holds the wrong way on the last 3 moves, being lucky not to fall as I felt my left hand slip away on the last sloper for a moment but then hopefully it stuck.

Before talking about grades and downgrading, I want to thank Thomas who for the Clean up day got a big pig for everybody. It was absolutely delightful...

Ok now some talking about grades in magic:

Never ending story is my second 8B+ although Jorg Verhoeven downgraded it to 8B I think that for such a strong route climber it might be easier it's like if you sent a boulderer in a 10 moves route it's his element. I’m not trying here to keep it as an 8b+ but just to find objectivity. If I would have to grade all the blocs that are hundred percent my style, I would have to downgrade a lot here in the woods but I don’t because I know that for somebody else it would be a lot harder. So I don’t really agree with all those personal downgrades, although if sometimes they really are helping the grades get closer to objectivity which by the way is impossible although many people still try by any means to compare everything like Fontainebleau and magic woods.

About this gap that everybody feels huge between those two areas, I, after gathering different opinions, have made the conclusion that you can’t compare peers and apples.

Magic wood is an area that really fits the indoor climbing, it is really powerful and fingery, when bleau is really technical, balancy, needs a lot of coordination.

So when out of the gym you can’t crush in Bleau as you’ve not learnt the style yet, it takes time to get used to it.

So many people living around Paris and really good climbers in font told me magic wood for them feels as hard as font or even harder and vice versa.

Anyway I would like people that read me to understand that I’m not trying here to make my opinion stand or reevaluate magic woods but if people want to talk about grades, even if for me the grade is not important, I can help sharing my opinion.

               That's how it looks during the rain days in magic... ( Credit : Alvi Pakarinen )

Now that you have heard what I think, I would really like to point out that it is totally a loss of time trying to establish a grading scale and hope that people that are trying will stop wasting their time, as it is impossible. Just take it the way things are, refer to the guidebook and just go with the grades, they don’t matter anyway. Grades are made so you can see yourself progress and in a special areas, all grades are compared to the problems in that area so then if something in magic wood for instance a 7B feels a lot easier than many other 7B’s than ok you may downgrade it because you’re comparing things from a same area and it is therefore objective.

For all the beginners, note that if you can’t a 7a in font and you can in magic, that doesn’t mean you have a level of 7a. You have a level 7a in magic wood.

I repeat myself don’t bother about grades. Find nice lines and climb them for what they look like and not for what they are worth. If you’re really concerned about how you progress, the best tip I can give you is to take references in each grade in an area.

For instance in magic would I would take five blocs of reference, considering I climbed 8B+ I’d take a few 7c’s, 7c+’s, 8a’s that I would climb every time I come there. So I can feel the progress. You could even take one move references or anything you want. I think that’s the best way to evaluate yourself.

So let’s quit the grade talk to come back to things more personal, I will leave pretty soon and will take two rest days and have a few last shots in the remembrance the morning of the day I’ll leave. I tried again yesterday and it felt better although I keep falling at the match move.

I also saw Dai again working on a new line ( thought all the possible lines were opened now ) which start like in search of time lost but goes left after the move I keep falling at. Definitely an other 8c he says. It seems that climbing with strong climbers really motivates me a lot, I am really inspired and hope that someday I’ll work along projects with them.

But I have now other goals as I really have to focus into my studies but I will try to change my approach of climbing by establishing a real training schedule.

I think it will look like 3 climbing sessions a week, one of routes, one of hard boulders and one of campus board to train mainly suspensions. Then I’ll add two 1hour-jogging sessions.

We’ll see if it pays off when I’ll be back outside again, probably in November but this time I’d rather go to Ticino than magic to climb a lot of 8’s.

                                         The bad weather in Magic ( Credit : Alvi Pakarinen )

That concludes this post, hope you whoever you are and whatever you climb, enjoy the sport, have fun, meet a lot of people, and especially push it as hard as you can in whatever grade. Have fun and be syked.

I also want to thank Thomas and Mischa for the hospitality at the Bodhi camping and of coarse all the climbers in the woods ( Paul, rasta paul, marion, tristan, ueli, lisa, calvin, janosch, mischa, thomas, anna, clemens, all the finish crew, the slovenian team, and all the ones I forgot)  especially those who lent me their pads when I arrived at the Bruno bloc and stayed with me and made me able to send despite the time going late and the rain, without them I wouldn’t have done it as the two next days were too wet to climb.