At the end of winter, The Climbing Corner traditionally hosts the Wintersends bouldering competition. Despite the name, just like in previous years, the weather was sunny and surprisingly warm.
This year, the event was bigger than ever. A new addition was the finals: as soon as you walked in, a large curtain caught your eye, hiding the final problems behind it. With 150 competitors and a sold-out event, we got started on 40 boulders. That was ten fewer than last year, but with an hour less climbing time, the pace was high right from the start.
What stood out immediately was how densely the problems were set, with many lines crossing or sharing space. This led to longer queues, especially on the popular slab problems. Normally, 3 hours is more than enough for 40 boulders, but this time I was left with only a few minutes to spare.
Qualification Round
The first boulders went smoothly. My strategy stayed the same. Start by topping a lot of easier problems to get into a flow, then move on to the harder ones. This time, though, it did not work out as well. With the crowd and the high number of dynamic moves, I fell off more often than usual, even on relatively easy boulders. There were also quite a few comp-style problems, which is not my strongest style, so I ended up missing a fair number of flash points.
Slowly, I worked my way through all 40 problems. If something did not go down quickly, I left it and came back later. The variety was huge, from lachés and swings to step-up dynos and even 360 moves. It really tested my full movement repertoire. With 30 minutes left on the clock, I still had four problems to go, and I quickly ticked off two of them.
The last two, both black boulders and therefore the hardest grade, could not have been more different: a delicate slab and a slightly overhanging problem with tension-heavy moves. I reached the zone on both, but I figured that would not be enough to make finals. After several attempts, I managed to top them both after all. That brought me to 40 out of 40 and secured me a fourth-place qualification for the finals.
Final
The final featured six men and six women. We had three boulders in a 4 minutes plus format. After a prize raffle with some great giveaways, it was time to climb. The first boulder was all about subtle movement around a corner. With each attempt I got a little further. On my third go I secured the zone, but the top hold stayed just out of reach.
While reading the second boulder, I could already tell it would not suit me. That proved true. It started with a laché into a dyno, but I could not even stick the first move and did not score a zone. The third boulder was the power problem. It almost felt like the setters forgot we had already climbed 40 qualification boulders. Like the other finalists, I stood no chance.
For the crowd, that was probably a bit disappointing. Neither in the women’s nor the men’s final were any tops achieved. The winners still walked away with solid prize money. My single zone was, of course, not enough for a podium finish.
Final thoughts
As every year, Wintersends was above all a fun and well-organized competition. That said, the format could have been better this time. The ratio of boulders to participants led to congestion, which disrupted the climbing flow.
Personally, the final did not add much to the competition for me. I am curious to see how The Climbing Corner will approach it next year.
