World Youth Ice Climbing Championship Lichtenstein 6th/7th Jan 2018

During November and December I competed in the British DryTooling Series, I won the series overall and got a place on the GB Ice Climbing Team. This meant that I was eligible to attend my first International Competition.

Drytooling Round 1

Before Christmas I met with Rachael Miller from the BBC at the Ice Wall in Snow Factor Braehead. There she filmed me doing some ice climbing and an Interview about the upcoming Youth World Ice Championships in Liechtenstein.  Scott Stevenson from Snow Factor was there with my dad helping out and making sure we got everything we needed.tmas

Snow Factor Ice Wall

the link is here in case you never seen it.

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-scotland-42424397/ice-climber-aims-for-the-sky

On Thursday 4th of January me and my dad flew out to Munich. We arrived at the airport at about twelve-ish and boarded the plane a few hours later. We had to get the flight to Stanstead then from there straight to Munich. we didn't arrive at the hotel till later on the Friday night so we had some food then went straight to bed. the next morning we had to get up early and have breakfast. we had hired a car the night before so we then packed our bags and drove to Liechtenstein. it took around three and half hours and on the way we passed through Austria and Switzerland. one we were in Liechtenstein we drove up one of the mountains into Malbun. The views were absolutely stunning and before we knew it we were outside the hotel. when we got there all you could see were skiers.Iit was so busy and really interesting to watch people do it(I've never skied), before even going into the hotel we seen the wall that I would be competing on it was literally a stone's throw away from the hotel door. 

 

Malbun Ice Tower

It was a really high ice tower 20meters tall with a dry tooling wall with an overhang recently added to the side. one part of the ice wall was ice up to almost the top then it turned into a dry tooling route and the opposite side was a vertical dry tooling route. it looked incredible and it was really impressive. They even had ice barrells hanging from the overhang but since it was slightly warm the ice had started to melt so later that night they ended up replacing them with wooden logs. After looking at the wall we headed inside to register and sign in to the hotel. 

The flags of the 10 Nations that competed.

Once we had registered and met everyone we put our bags in the hotel room and went downstairs into the registration room and listened to the briefing and said hi to all the other teams. Me and my dad were the only two people there representing Great Britain, while there was other teams like Russia, France, Swiss and USA with much larger teams. For dinner there was a buffet set up and we were to sit at certain tables. each table had a team flag on it so me and my dad had dinner at the smallest table whilst the other countries had massive long buffet tables all set up. After everyone had eaten we had an opening ceremony. Everyone from each team had to walk down this little icy road with fire lining the sides holding a big flaming torch and one of the kids who lived there walked with you holding up a sign that said what team you were from. I had the good luck to be walking with Sina a 7 year old girl who had seen the BBC video before I got there so knew who I was, she was really cute and I learned that she was having her birthday the following week ( I hope she got the card I sent). The first team to walk down was France a big team with lots of competitors and coaches, it was an amazing atmosphere there were people clapping cheering and they were playing really load music. After France they called Great Britain so me and Sina and her mum Nikki started to walk down, it was exciting to walk down with all the fire and the cheering. 

 

Walking down with all the fire.

Me Sina and her mum Nikki

 

Straight after the opening ceremony there was a free show "Fire and Ice", it was really cool to watch and funny as well. Since everyone was up early the next morning for the competition we all went straight to bed after it.

Waking up the next morning I was really tired because we had to get up and have breakfast for before eight. we sat and ate breakfast in the same place that we had ate dinner the following night. We had our first route being all ice and our second route the one with most ice but also some dry tooling. We were given an order in which to climb and I was near the end giving me plenty of time to watch everyone and when it was my time to go I was warm and ready to climb. I managed to top my first route and we quickly moved on to the second route. I was near the middle in the order this time . 

I got to the second last hold but then got pulled off the wall for time . 

The head judge came running over as soon as I was down and was saying how it wasn't time for me but someone on the other wall so I waited till the rest of my category had gone then got to go again. I managed to top it putting me in joint first with a few of the Russian girls. My whole category was Russian except from one French girl. A few of the Russians could speak a little English so I tried talking them for a bit. We then went and got lunch which was a buffet again before going back to the hotel for a nap. speed qualifiers and finals got put into the one thing because of the temperature and how soft the ice was so I had a four hour break before having a snack and heading back down to the climbing wall which was only 30 metres from the hotel that all the competitors were staying in. 

Everyone got one practice run on a wall that we weren't doing our speed run on then we got split into girls and boys. The youngest category under 16 which was mine went first. we all got three timed runs and the best time out of them all gave us our final position. At the top of the wall there is a metal thing that flaps over the buzzer but me and one other girl had a miss hit that didn't register so we had to do an extra run. I ended up coming seventh for speed which I was quite happy about. We stayed and watched the older people do their speed route and then went for dinner, then straight to sleep again. 

On the Sunday morning it was finals and another early rise. we were up and ready for about half seven and then got breakfast before putting all of my gear in isolation. In isolation they had a wooden frame with some climbing holds on it to help warm up, me and most other people just done jogging on the spot and used our bands. I was near the end so I had plenty of time so I also ready. I think I was in isolation for almost two hours, but halfway through we got to go out and view our route, mine was on the vertical dry tooling wall and then went round the corner onto the other side of the wall finishing on the ice. 

Route Preview

When it was my time to go out the lady took my bag of stuff and handed it to my dad whilst I got tied in and ready to climb my route. 

Tied in ready to climb the final route.

I got up past the first few clips before getting to an awkward hold which I ended up pinging off but a few girls had done the same and some didn't get up to there so we waited on the result and when they came I was quite happy. I had came joint fifth with a couple of the Russian girls. We stayed and watched the prize giving the top three made podium and the winner had their national anthem played while they stood there holding their countries flag. All the teams got a big balloon and everyone from the team wrote their names on it. The little girl Sina who had walked with me at the opening ceremony asked if she could go up and let go of the balloon with me so we wrote our names and GB on the balloon.  A few people from each team went up and let go off the balloons, it was a really nice way to end the competition.  

 Me and my dad says thanks and well done to everyone before packing our bags and heading, we done the same drive back to the hotel we had booked in Munich as the one we had done to get there. once again it was so pretty and nice to drive through the mountains just looking at all the views. Once back in Munich we handed our car back and got some food, we went for a McDonalds. We had a look in the shops at the airport and bought a few small things. once back at the hotel we had an early night watched some movies and went to bed. The next morning we got to sleep till nine which is still really early for me but the last few days had been worst so I didn't mind too much. We had breakfast, got the shuttle bus back to the airport and got a direct flight back home to Edinburgh where my mum picked us up and took us home. overall I had a great time. It was a really great experience and I would love to do it again.  I was happy to be interviewed when I got home by Murray Spooner from the Rutherglen Reformer and the interview can be seen here on the Daily Record webpage.

 https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/local-sport/cambuslang-teenager-only-british-representative-11861855

Many thanks go to Snow Factor for sponsoring me as a Young Athlete, TCA, GCC. Rope Race and the coaches for their encouragement, and to individuals Simon Ward, Anna Wells, Kev Shields, Willis Morris and Scott G for helping me with my training.