I decided a few months ago not to splash out on the earlier rounds of the UIAA Ice Climbing World Cup (luckily as it turns out - a broken ankle would have made it impossible to compete) I almost didn't even climb at Saas Fee. I'm so glad I came to the comp though, competing gives a slightly different buzz from onsight trad or bouldering but just as much fun in its own way. Sadly though my performance level had been decided months ago by a summer of mainly trad slab climbing followed by UK mixed which does not give a good build up for the powerful 6 minute sprint of a competition - that was before a month of demotivating sitting around with a damaged ankle. I climbed ok but no where near what I'm capable of and will probably finish about 40th out of 70 (I usually place around 20th) Next year, is the annually repeated mantra. The feeling of having not enough strength to do the moves of the qualifying route highlighted to me how much training I had been doing previously, not a structured training routine, more like regularly getting out on steep ground with axes and trying hard.
It was cool to hear from the other competitors how well respected the Ice Climbing World Cup is around the world - there were 400 individual competitors last year and the total prize purse for this years Korean round was over 30,000 Euros.
Maybe next year?
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