Climbaprix

Open Men - 3rd climber

Well, the competition's over. The stress, and adrenaline, the pressure, the pain in the fingers, the flash pumps .. all back. The bittersweet feeling of competitions, with your friends cheering you on as you face the wall and acknowledge tiles that you know will make you pay for even thinking of touching them. Routes that seem impossible, and muscles that scream in agony. Ah, a bouldering competition.

Route A flash-pumped me. Crimper, after crimper, after crimper. I couldn't even reach the bonus that I later learned that almost everybody got.

Route B looked do-able, but it was pumpy again, and my already pumped forearms gave way. I had my legs exactly where they were supposed to be, and my left hand was holding on to the tile at the precise location where everybody else did, and yet, when I launched for the bonus with my right hand, I fell. Weak.

Route C had a big fat slopper as a starting hold and a small little foothold for the left foot. I molested the tile a little as I tried to figure out how to start. Sit start? Nope. Stand start? Weird too. Almost a minute went by before I gave up and tried a do-or-die sit start. I made it. Got up, grabbed a nice vertical pincher with my left hand, and brought my right left up to the starting slopper. Rested my weight nice and easy on the right leg, and reached out with my right hand for a yellow crescent sloppy pinch. Nice. Bring left leg up to the 2nd tile, and sit towards the left while my left hand reached out gingerly for the huge bonus on the other side of a protruding triangular feature. Got a firm hold of it, swung upwards to a sloper on the top of the triangle, hauled my body up, rested my right leg on the crescent, hopped for the top boxed out part of the ledge. And I'm done. Flash.

Route D. Sigh. Totally pumped out by then. Didn't even make the bonus.

Anyway thanks to my miraculous flash, I managed a semi-respectable 11th placing out of 24 in the men's open. NUS, NYP, SP and ITE were represented.

The climbing walls. See the triangle the left of the picture? That's Route C. And guys, don't the walls look different from the last time we were there? So much more power now.
Results. Many strong climbers didn't do as well as they were supposed to..

Supper at Chatterbox. The chicken rice tastes as good as five-star chicken rice or the chicken rice stall at far east plaza. Nice, quiet place though.