European Youth Championship Imst (27-28/7/13)

The European Youth Championships were held in Imst this year. When we arrived in Imst it was really hot. In the evening during the opening ceromony the rain started pouring down, so all climbers had to take shelter in the big tent. 🙂

The next day we started early and in the morning it was still cool. The first qualification route had a crux in the beginning. I almost fell at this point, but I could luckily continue. When I arrived in the last part of the route I hesitated. Some girls before me had fallen here by taking an intermediate hold, so I thought that the hold had to be bad. I decided to skip the intermediate hold and make a plus to the next one, which of course was the wrong decision.

The beginning of the 2nd route was vertical and then the route became very hard. I was really happy that I managed to top out!

The second qualification route (Photo: Yves Guérit)

3 of my team mates were in the finals as well: Nicolas Collin (male youth B), Celine Cuypers (female youth B) and Loïc Timmermans (male Juniors).

On Sunday all the girls had the same final route. It looked nice, but also logical for which I was happy. The first part was harder than I had expected. In the roof there was a hard move and it was difficult to clip. I became more and more tired and did some more moves. I fell totally pumped and was really satisfied.

The girls final route

Jessica Pilz from Austria climbed amazing and topped the route! Congratulations Jessi :-)! She was 1st, I became 2nd and Hannah Schubert (AUT) 3rd.

Female Youth A podium 🙂

Nicolas became 5th, Celine was 10th and Loïc 4th. He fell at the same place as Jefta from Israël who won bronze because of the countback.

After the competition my parents and I stayed a little longer to try some of the routes. Then we finally drove home after 3 weeks of holiday and competitions. 😉