Closing the boulder season 2014

Time flies and its near the end of 2014, with the boulder season closing with Rockmaster 2014 in late september, and just before that with Onsight Bouldering Championships (OBC) making a comeback after 2012. I missed out blogging for Boulderactive - will try to include it in here as well.

On a good note, I have completed my first coaching course and am officially NROC! :D I've learnt alot from the course, am definitely gonna apply it once training starts again.

NROC membership card! Proud. :D

Managed to bag the championship title for OBC 2014 held at the Onsight Climbing Gym late August. The routes were set by the local route setters from the gym itself: Shaun, Hazlee and Hilman. It was an unexpected win for me as I was tuning down and had laid off from training after the Boulderactive earlier in July - placed 3rd in the competition, battling near the end through an elimination format which was rather stressful. :p

Open Women winners for Boulderactive

Rustam Gelmanov was the guest setter for Boulderactive and the competition was held in tandem with the Asian University Climbing Championships. - the first of its kind (here we saw local hero Aaron Tan from NUS beating World Cup climber Chon Jongwon to the overall Boulder champion, with our Singapore flag flown high (proud moment there). Liting won the speed climb on the last route and won 1st for Boulderactive, along with a trip the compete in The North Face Cup Japan 2015, as I had done so for the past 2 years - its gonna be one awesome trip once again!

With Rustam, very inspiring, very small too!

Back to OBC 2014, the gym specially built an addition flat wall in addition to the massive advanced wall. We had 6 finalists this time, and finals went by almost as fast as Boulderactive, and it was a joy to compete.

Candid moment taken by Hazlee. Hes the only one who can bring me "out of my zone" when I'm resting on rotation.

Sharing the podium with climbermom Beatrix Chong and fellow podium buddy Felicia Lim.

Rockmaster 2014 was once again the rock-clubbing com-party-tion that we always expected Singapore Polytechnic to host. This time was no different with the back-to-basics wall and side openings, smoke machine and disco-tech lights. Red Bull came in strong this year and I'm hoping this is the start for something big for climbing, here in Singapore.

I managed to flash 4 out of 5 of the qualifiers route, with 1 mistake on starting on one of the route to total 6 attempts to top. I placed high on the table and was feeling rather confident and at ease with how I was climbing. The format was slightly different this time, with points allocated to the "intended moves" to a tile. Meaning some intermediate moves were not awarded. To be frank, as a competitor, I am still quite confused with the scoring system, as I cannot tell how the points were tabulated and awarded.

Wearing the blue Kailas pants which I won in OBC 2014. Love it for being ligthweight and stretchy. Good size too!

Managed to flash my second finals route, and reached near the last hold for my other 2 routes. I had managed to high point on my first attempts but mistakes costs me a grand finish and I got pushed down to 3rd. Things like matching on a tile to generate more power to make the next move, and a simple confidence jump to the otherwise scary fall at the last route. The champion title was awarded to Vanessa Teng, budding climber from SP and the National Youth Squad and I'm proud she has come this far.

Final results for Rockmaster

Getting tired in going for that tile on Route #1 Womens Open Finals. Photo credit to Jonathan Song.

This boulder season at a glance:

• 1st place, SMU Gravical, Boulder
• 2nd place, Pumpfest, Boulder 
• 3rd place, NUS-Black Diamond Boulderactive, Boulder
• 1st place, Onsight Bouldering Championship, Boulder
• 3rd place, Rockmaster, Boulder

has seen some variations in my podium placing. I do hope I can continue with even better performance in the coming year.

This year, I have begun to take a step back and explore other trainings. I have to accept that I will not be able to compete overseas as freely as I could in the past, nor train as hard, due to work commitments (its not easy trying to let this go. :p). I am currently working on difficulty routes, i.e. leading, to explore climbing in more ways than one. I managed to join the speed team for one of their trainings - making me all nostalgic for 3 years ago when I was training hard for speed. I will continue to crush at local competitions as much as I can, so that one day, when opportunities come knocking on my door, someday I can actually open that door.

Till next time,
keep the psyche going.

J