Summer full of competitions

It's been quite some time since last post, and in the meantime I was on a lot of competitions. In fact, most of this season is over for me,  only what's left is World youth championship in China in November and maybe WC Paris next month.

So big part of summer I spent around on competitions. I'd go to competition, return home for few days and then head for another one. I really like competitions, but in the end it left me quite tired now.

Oh, and I enrolled on college, University of Business and Economics in Zagreb :)

EYC Soure

First competition was in Portugal, which I was happy to visit as I was never there before. It was in May, and it was good to see where im standing at the moment after all the trainings. I did get into finals, but I didn't do well there and ended 7th. I was happy with finals for first competition though.

 WC Innsbruck

Next stop in May was Innsbruck, with whole croatian senior team going there. I absolutely love when we all go, it is always great fun and good mood when we are together.

 Boulders for my group were quite easy, which surprised me. I did 3 tops, and could easily have 4, but not even 5 was enough to get into finals, small number of tries was crucial. I ended in the middle, 63rd, which I was satisfied with, knowing I could do better easily. After the comp we went to Maltatal 1 day for bouldering, and I was reallyyyy close to do Wrestling with an aligator 8B, but rain started after 20 min of trying so we had to go. I'm just waiting to come back and do it.

EYC Graz

Graz was in the middle of June, and I had pretty high expectiations for this competition, as we trained in that gym alot and I knew almost all holds, which is always good. I started good, but there was one weird plate with top in the level of the feet which I just couldn't figure out how to do, so this time I ended outside the finals.

This one I couldnt top

EYC Warsaw

Start of July, and its turn for Poland. I was excited to go there as it's new place for me. I went there with coach Lisica, and we had really nice experience in Warsaw. We had no car so we used public transport and we've seen a lot of the city, which I really like.
In the gym it was quite hot, luckily I'm used to it as it's the same in my home gym in the summer. Here it was interesting, 20 minutes before the end, there were 2 boulder in which I both did 3 tries already, everytime with different beta so I didn't know which one to use in next attempt. So I chose one for each problem, and managed to do them both in next try which put me into finals.
In the finals I slipped from 1 top, and placed 6th.

Warsaw is beautiful city

from the finals

handling the beta

European university games

Now this was amazing experience! 5 of us from University of Zagreb were stationed with all other athletes in ''competition village'' and it was so much fun. Competition lasted for 3 days, with boulder, lead and speed. Fun thing is that on the day of bouldering competition I also had to sign up for university. So I woke up early, and went to sign up which was at 9.00, finished with it around 11.00 and then headed to competition which started at 13.30. I arrived to competition as freshman of Economics.    :D

I had no idea how strong the competition will be, and I was surprised when I saw some of the well-known faces, such as Dmitry Sharafutdinov. It was easy to get into finals, but the finals were sooo exciting and close.  I did my best, managing to secure podium on the very last boulder, finishing 3rd! Only 1 attempt short of Dmitry who was 2nd, while Slovenian Zupan was first. As it was hot and lasted quite long, I ended up with pretty bad skin for next part of competition.
Next day, lead and speed. As I didn't train lead at all I wasn't surprised to end up withouth the finals, I think I was 14th. The problem was also that I had almost no skin on fingertips so I couldnt do more than 5 minutes of warmup on wall :(

And then speed, in which I decided to perfom despite my trainer telling me not to. But good thing that I did!
I had to tape almost all my fingertips, but it didn't matter that much in speed. I was surprised how I was decreasing my time with each run, which led me to another 3rd place in the end!
Unluckily, I missed taster in the battle for 2nd place, but that came back when I managed to win in battle for 3rd against Russian who had fastest time of the competition, as he slipped. That speed was really a blast!  When everything finished I was so broken, no skin, everything hurt me, but it was all worth it.
I didn't even think I will be able to compete for the podium, but ended with 2 medals. Great time here, looking forward to climbing on next games :)

Zagreb university team 

EYC Argentierre

After University games, I came home, had 2 hours to pack up , went to sleep, and in the morning I was already heading for France. I only hoped my skin will be back normal for this comp, and it was, but I could feel fatigue in muscles which was result of giving my best on University games. I had really bad start, got a bit nervous, and then rain stopped the competition. I relaxed in the meantime, and when we continued I was doing great. Sadly, I was 1 try short of the finals, finishing 11th.

junior team

EYCH Langenfeld

Came home for 2 days, and went to my last european youth competition. Familiar place, was here 2 times already and last year I did really good so I expected something similiar. But, boulders were really hard and I was climbing so strange, I don't even know what happened. I was only 30th, which left me disappointed, especially as it was my last such competition and I wanted to remember it as good one. Maybe I fell out of shape a bit, as my home gym is closed during summer so I had to patch my trainings in different ways. Now it's good thing there is some time before next competition, to calm down and get back in shape.

After competition I went with my familty to Zillertal where I had chance to boulder for 1 day only, as it started raining afterwards.
It was cool day tho, I didn't climb quite some time on granite and I was happy to feel it again.
I did 7B+,  7B+ on flash, 7C and 7C+/8A.




Soon the gym will open, and I'll be back to hardcore trainings again,
and I hope I'll be able to go on few boulder trips also