New Year Party in Spain

Straight after Christmas a cool group of 10 friends went to Spain, excluding Stew who went for a more traditional celebration to England. The whole trip we had amazing weather, sunshine, sometimes wind and a lot of fun. We stayed in an apartment close to Lydia. From there we visited different crags, such as Oliana (WOW-pumpy!), Margalef (WOW steep on pockets and OUTCH sore on the skin) and Santa Linya (big cave). Early on in the trip I found out, that for climbing something hard my stamina was not good enough, but form the training point of view I managed to go home after every climbing day with arms as heavy and hard as stones. In total the trip was definitely one of my greatest highlights last season. Now back home the training starts again:
BY SPAIN, HELLO DIRTY, DUSTY BOULDERROOM :-\

Autumn in Tirol

Tyrol is the best place to hang around in autumn. The weather is stable, sunny but not too hot. Stew and I spent as much time as possible on the rock. During our France trip I built a good level of stamina and managed to climb my hardest route ever; "Fortuna" 8b in Nassereith. This route is powerful, tricky and a fair bit of stamina is required. At first it felt impossible for me, consequently it felt even better to be able to climb it.
Last week I managed to climb my 4th 8b named "a g'sunde Watschn" in an fairly new area in Oetztal. In comparison to Fortuna, this route was more my style and I climbed it quite fast. However, it is almost November now and the opportunities to climb routes on the rock will slowly be over.

(photos are all from Elias Holzknecht in Niederthai: Stew on "passport to honesty 8c" and me on "le miracle 7b").

Woldchampionship Arco, Adidas Rockstars and BWC Munich

Arco: The world championship in Arco was a great event unfortunately it ended for me already after the qualification round with a close 23nd place. For Stew the competition was more successful and he finished with a strong 9th place. But the winner of the day was Anna after a rickety semi-final she crushed the final and won.

Adidas Rockstars: Amazing show. I climbed a strong quali-round but semi did not go so well, but once again Stew climbed really strong and was able to rock in the final. Congrats!

BWC Munich: The preparation for this comp was mainly doing routes outside and try to work on some stamina. However I felt stronger than before. The competition was really enjoyable and I climbed to my best result this season (11th). Now its time for the rope...

Worldcupseason 2011

The preparation for this year’s competition season started off really well and I had a lot of confidence to improve my performance from last year. Finally the first Worldcup in Milan approached. Few days before the competition I was suffering from a bad stomach flu and only decided to compete on the day of travelling. Considering the circumstances I climbed alright and finished 22^nd. Unfortunately my body was not totally ready for the heavy workload and I inflamed a tendon in my finger, which troubled me throughout the season. Stew climbed really well in the qualification round, but a few hours later he caught as well the stomach flu and could not climb in the Semi-final- DAMN!

Log Dragomer- 24^th. That was the low point this season and my finger injury. I felt distracted throughout the whole competition.

Vienna – 20^th Good start, amazing run in the qualification round. Semi-final not my style.

Eindhoven -22^nd tried hard.

Barcelona- 12^th. Wow finally a good result, the comp with my unfinished top attempts.

Sheffield- 18^th my worst semi-final, everything went wrong.

Munich....coming soon!