Team Slovenia - Day 10

With Jakob going on the Saturday night Team Slovenia wasn't really a team any more but following the CWIF after-party arrangements had been made to bring the team back up to full strength. To replace Jakob in came Klemen Becan and honorary Slovenian (for two days) Nalle Hukkataival - Team Slovenia hadn't just been brought back up to strength - it had got a whole lot stronger with three climbers who had done at least Font 8a on board now! Thankfully yours truly was aboard and somewhat hungover to boot to keep things in the realms of respectability for a while at least.

Once Team Slovenia had been fuelled with Red Bull and the like it was off to Stanage for another day of crushing - first up was that perennial favourite Deliverance which was quickly dispatched by all concerned.

While we were there we were joined there by Ned Feehally, Nick from Outcrop Films and a few others just to add a bit more crush to the team and the send train on Deliverance continued. As is usual there was a fair bit of banter going round and eventually the (possibly mythological) story of the basketball player sending Deliverance came up. This naturally descended into a plan of sorts and a runway of mats was set up and off they went. One by one the problem went down until there was just one guy (whose name I forget) left. Again and again he tried but kept falling short so to help him up the problem an Oreo biscuit was placed on top to that extra bit of motivation.

© Klemen Becan

It worked.

© Klemen Becan

From there it was over to Brass Monkeys - Jernej proved that winning the CWIF hadn't been too much of a strain by doing the honours yet again with the usual flash of the problem. Nalle and Klemen both gave it a good go but ultimately got shut down on that so it was off to try Help the Young SS instead.

It has to be said that trying Help the Young SS probably wasn't the best idea of the day as it was catching the sun on one side on what was already proving to be a warm day and while the standing start may have been done by one or two of the team the SS eluded everyone and after a while of futility it was sacked off for other things instead.

For Jernej that involved a very quick introduction to trad climbing. He had been wanting to get on Unfamiliar (E7 6c) but thought it best to try a couple of routes first and so we sat at the bottom of Millsom's Minion (E1 5b) while I explained as best I could what everything was and how to use it. Suitably (or not as the case may be) educated in the intricacies of placing random pieces of metal he shot off up the route and made it look easy whereas I (who had actually seconded this route cleanly years ago) failed to get past the crux in a display of such ineptitude that words fail me. It also means that there is clearly a lot of work to do with getting back into some sort of non-bouldering mental state if I am to get back on a bit of string again this year.

We then went and had a look at The Unfamiliar (well Jernej did) but a lack of a static rope and also something meaningful to attach it to on top of the route without a load of frigging about meant that setting up a top rope wasn't going to be easy. After a bit of thinking about it we decided that it really wasn't that much of an option and added it to the ever growing list of things to do next time and went to see what the rest of the squad were up to.

Walking down the crag we found them below Ulysses where a huge pile of mats had been placed so that it became a problem of highball (yeah right) proportions. I took the sensible approach and got out the camera instead - a far better proposition I thought. 

 

As far as I can remember Klemen sent it, Ned sent it and Jernej flashed it with his usual calm style and weird flat foot smearing style.

Once that had been done by the majority then attention was turned to White Wand instead and the send train got rolling with a vengence - Ned flashed it followed by Jernej followed by Klemen.followed by at least one other who decided that he was going to do the whole route which led to some very tense minutes for the onlookers (and I guess him as well) high up while he figured out the rest of the route.

Finally it was time for the team to get on Careless Torque - Ron Fawcett's classic line on the Not to Be Taken Away block. Ned got it sent again, Nalle and Jernej both got sent packing by it and Klemen...

Careless Torque Trailer from Outcrop Films on Vimeo.

Team Slovenia - Day 8 & 9 - CWIF

I had a day of doing other things for the qualifying round of the CWIF but in a nutshell Jernej thought he had done enough to qualify. Jakob knew he hadn't as he didn't do all the problems but as he was leaving in the early hours of Sunday morning anyway whether Jakob did qualify or not wasn't that important.

Before he went though I introduced both of them to the finest pub that is within 10 minutes of my house - The Sheaf - which they were both very impressed with. Whether it was the quality of the barmaids, the beer or just the fact that it an awesome pub that impressed them so I couldn't quite figure out. Me I was impressed by all three elements naturally.

Sunday dawned and having checked the qualifying results I drove Jernej to the Climbingworks so that he had plenty of time to get warmed up prior to isolation. On the way down we had the stereo cranked up loud (with extra servings of Sub and Bass) to the sounds of Tuomas Rantanen to provide some extra SYKE before heading back and dropping the van off back at the house ready to walk down later. Simple reason for this was that Graeme A had promised me a couple of beers for going to the trouble of putting up Team Slovenia and I was going to cash in on that for sure - not for the trouble that Team Slovenia had caused me (which was none) but because the only thing better than a beer is a free beer!

The semis seemed to be going OK but Jernej really struggled on Problem Three - a very technical balancy affair to say the least but he made the bonus hold on his last go but got timed out before topping the problem out by 1-2 seconds which meant that he had finished sixth. He was gutted to say the least as if he had done problem number three in the time then he would have been through for sure. I commiserated with him and then he went off before coming back within five minutes to tell me that he had made the final after all as the top six go through to the final in the CWIF and not the top five as is usual on the World Cup comps. From the depths of despair to the heights of ecstasy would be a good way of describing how he felt and he said that he was going to win it now that he was in the final.

The final was a stellar line-up to say the least featuring Dave Barrans, Tyler Landman, Ned Feehally, Nigel Callendar, Stewart Watson and of course Jernej. Since he had qualified sixth then he was first up on Problem One which he duly made look easy by flashing it. I put it down as an "easy" warm-up to get the crowd going a bit but at the rest of the field came through and none of them could touch it then I started to get the feeling that Jernej's confidence after the semis was not misplaced but that this could really be on. Problem Two saw four of the finalists top it out (Jernej got it second go) to close the field up a bit but Problem Number Three was a real tester. Again Jernej was up first and his sequence looked completely wrong to me but it was subsequently proven to be correct when the other competitors used a similar method and Dave Barrans topped it out. Lastly it was on to Problem Number Four and all Jernej had to do to take the CWIF was to top it out. I was pretty damn SYKED by this stage and after having a look at it from the sidelines I turned to one of the guys I knew and said that it was in the bag as it was so similar to a problem that he had put up in Slovenia.

Did he do it? Of course he did - he fucking destroyed it!

CWIF Winners 2011 from UKClimbing.com TV on Vimeo.

We partied hard after that I can tell you!