Monday 30 June 2014

The Bucket List. By Daragh O'Connor

On the 21st of June the British Bouldering Championships rolled around yet again, Qualification went as planned with me making it into semi’s in 14th. Not amazing, but not bad either.
The real fun was to start the next day. It was a strange feeling to be climbing in the semi’s as all my thoughts and psyche building up were focused on the Qualifiers...


After my first problem I knew my head wasn’t in the game at all. Falling off the first slab which normally would be the problem I would bank on put me off. After that I couldn’t get settled. Looking back I feel like I should have comfortably done both the slab and the dino; and with another attempt on each I might just have.
But sure thats the way with competitions. If your heads not prepared you get diddly in terms of tops. After being bumped down a position from qualifiers to 15th I had to put it out of my mind and focus on what was the main point of the trip.
The senior world cup in Laval.



I knew that how I would climb would pivot on my mindset, if I wasn’t focused I would get annoyed at how I was climbing and with that get more distracted.
Isolation at the world cup is like no other isolation you have ever experienced. Your standing in a room with the best climbers in the world, its tense to say the least. As I was climbing late I had to chill for an hour or 2, trying not to even look at the other climbers as a knock on your confidence is the worst thing that could happen before you have to convince yourself that you can crush every problem in a heartbeat.


You have 50 minutes. 25 minutes of climbing 25 of rest. 5 on 5 off. You don’t really think of much else but climbing. It wasn’t pressure or any of silly mental barrier stuff  that made the comp feel different, it was just an unbelievable amount of psych I had never felt before. After getting my first problem second go and falling off the top hold of 2 more problems i was happy. My result (late 40’s) didn’t show how close I was to doing very well indeed. With just holding those 2 top holds I would have been bumped up my result 20 places at the very least.
Thats why im happy. So excited to do more, and maybe just need to be a little luckier and hopefully all should fall into place.



So yes. Competing in the senior world cup. One of my biggest goals in climbing ticked of the bucket list!

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