It's a long way home from China!

This year I was given the opportunity to go to China for the first World Cup event of 2012. Originally I wasn’t planning to go – it is a long way, very expensive and, although I enjoy them, my strengths do not lie in competition climbing. However, Alex Puccio (who has been living in the UK for some time now) got some funding from her sponsor Fila to go to the competition and they agreed to pay for someone else to go with her. As many may know, Alex’s boyfirend Chris Web-Parsons hurt his shoulder at the CWIF in Sheffield and was not feeling up to it – so Alex kindly offered the place to me. What a great opportunity, there was no decision process! I was excited for the competition but also for the experience of going to a new place.

It was a long journey…two flights, 12 hours air time, 7 hour time difference. When the qualifiers came around I was pretty tired but I’m sure everyone else was too.  The competition didn’t go very well for me at all. In the qualifiers I did 2 out of 5 problems, touching the last hold of 2 of the ones I didn’t complete – very frustrating! I made it to the semi finals but I struggled even more there, only making one bonus hold! I ended up in 17th place, frustrated and a bit disappointed…..but c’est la vie, we can’t always have the things we want and this one was just not for me. I am going to put it behind me and try again this weekend in Slovenia!  A big well done to Shauna Coxsey who ended up in 4th place 🙂

On the upside, I got to see some of China which was great. Chongqing is a huge city, with a population of around 5 million. The traffic is crazy, there are sky high blocks of flats wherever you look and you get stared at A LOT if you’re blonde! The people were freindly, consistently helpful and they put on a great competition for us…perhaps we will be there again next year!