30,000 Strong in Sheffield

As I've mentioned before, my friend Chris Webb-Parsons and I have been doing the commentating for the live webfeed for IFSC.TV. In the beginning of the season we averaged about 16,000 viewers per world cup, it constantly grew throughout the season until we reached around 22,000.

If anyone had asked Chris and I how many people we thought were hearing us, I'm sure we would have guessed five thousand, tops. We had no idea so many people tuned in to watch the world cups every weekend. I guess you could say a little excitement, and also pressure, were added when we heard how many people were listening. But I think it also heightened our game as well, made us more on-the-ball with our comments. Apparently it's paying off.

Last weekend in Sheffield we made IFSC history. It was officially recorded that we exceeded 30,000 live feed viewers!! Needless to say, Chris and I were shocked! As was everyone else who heard the statistics. You could fill a football stadium with 30,000 people!

As for the actual competition, Sheffield marked the end of the world cup season for me. Holding it down for the US Team in finals were Daniel Woods in 4th and Alex Puccio in 3rd. Courtney Woods was just barely bumped out of Semi's in the devastating place of 21st. I've had my share of 7ths this year (four in a row to be precise), so I know the heartbreaking feeling of being the first one kicked out of the next round.

In some non-patriotic news, my fellow Innsbruck dweller Nicky De Leeuw of the Netherlands made his first world cup finals ever!

And my friend Katha Saurwein of Austria joined her teammate Anna Stohr in her first finals of this season. Being good friends with so many in the finals made it an extra special round to spectate and commentate for.

The grand finale will be the World Championships in Arco, Italy in a few weeks, then back to the US for the Outdoor Retailer Tradeshow in Salt Lake City.

This season, like last season, had it's series of rollercoaster ups and downs, as every climber experiences sometime in their career/life.

Last year I had a goal of consistency, and with my placings jumping around from first to fifteenth, I wouldn't say I attained it.

This year I didn't set blatant expectations for myself, but I believe I came over here, if not stronger, than a more experienced world cup competitor, and I believe gained the consistency I was reaching for in my previous season.

Just over a week now until the Arco World Championships. I spontaneously decided to compete in the all-around, which includes speed and lead along with bouldering, so it's going to be a hectic and busy ten days of competition. Boat loads, or I guess "plane loads" of more Americans will be arriving in Europe to attend this event, making it the most Ami-overloaded European competition. Watch out Arco... We are coming for your pizza and gelato!

It'll be my last chance to try to make finals this season, but you can bet if I don't, you'll be hearing my voice on the live stream!

Viva España!

Last weekend I was in beautiful Barcelona for the city´s first ever Bouldering World Cup. If I had to sum up the weekend in one word it would be: HOT!

This was the first time this season that the competition was held inside, and it was like trying to climb in a sauna. The blizzard in Canmore would have been greatly appreciated compared to what we had to deal with in Barcelona, we couldn´t do a move without needing to chalk up again, it was very interrupted bouldering.

We were joined again by even more Americans representing, along with myself, Puccio, Daniel & Courtney Woods, we were joined by Matty Hong and Ian Dory, both spending time in Europe before the Arco World Championships, along with our official Barcelona team coach and physio Taylor Nystrom.
I managed to place 7th (yet again!) just kicked out of finals, but that made me available for my usual commentating job. I heard over the weekend that the IFSC World Cup live webstreaming averages 16,000 to 22,000 viewers per competition. It´s so crazy that so many people are out there listening to me talk!

I absolutely loved Barcelona, regardless of the intense heat or my ability to remain stuck just outside of finals, and on my return I´d decided I´d added another European city to my list of earthly paradises. It was a shame we only had three days in Spain and I can´t wait to go back!

The Midst of the 2011 World Cup Season

We are really getting down to the wire here with the World Cup Season well under way! The two homefield events, Canmore and Vail, were both equally fun, although I missed out on finals by one place in both competitions. We also experienced entirely opposite weather, with snow in Canada and sun in Colorado. Props to Canmore on a successful first World Cup, blizzard aside, Canada has had the best setting of the season so far.

Fun @ the Teva Mountain Games photobooth

Immediately after Vail (more specifically after the Woods-Sanders wedding) I headed back to Austria to try to battle out the jetlag and prepare for the next stop in Eindhoven. Eindhoven marked the beginning of the end here, we now have a World Cup every weekend leading up to the grand finale, the World Championships in Arco, Italy, beginning on June 15. Of course this schedule adds a bit of stress and pressure, but it adds to the excitement as well. Eindhoven--Barcelona--Sheffield--Innsbruck--Arco. This next month is going to fly by!

Although my rankings this season haven't been personally exceptional compared to last season, I have been gaining a lot of experience and exposure in the media field--as Official World Cup Commentator! My Australian colleague Chris Webb-Parsons and myself have become the head speakers for the live web broadcasts watched all over the world at http://www.ifsc.tv/. We´ve recieved a lot of positive feedback, and it has been so much fun! It´s great to have something to distract us from wishing we were in the finals, and providing some listening entertainment is just the thing. Every weekend we´ve been getting better and better, we get excellent front row seats, and we get to look super important with our headsets and microphones, always a plus. After doing this at nearly every World Cup so far this year, I may have taken an interest in persuing a new career in the future!



Mr. Australia commentating in all his pre-mullet glory

It's a hard job...



Recently I have found our team growing. In the beginning it was only Puccio and myself representing the United States, and now our numbers have grown to four! Daniel and Courtney Woods have joined the ranks and we have been able to make an appearance as an actual team! Our honorary adopted team members also consist of Australian Chris Webb-Parsons and Canadian Sean McColl. We have our own little island of English-speaking misfit toys.

 Step 1...

 Step 2...

 Step 3!

 Sean McColl & Daniel Woods

Courtney Woods

My psych has been on a steady upswing lately, leading up to Barcelona this weekend. Even though tomorrow I´ll be in the beautiful land of SPAIN I´ll still be thinking about everyone back home competing in New York City! I´m looking forward to a great time this weekend!

All unmarked photos courtesy of Albert Maas at http://www.sportclimbing.hyves.nl/

Milan Bouldering World Cup

I spent last week in Milan, Italy, people-watching and scoping out new outfit ideas because it was FASHION WEEK!! A few things I noticed:

IN:

Converse sneakers (takes me back to first grade, it´s the return of The Sandlot era!)

leather jackets

highwater pants

murses (men´s purses)

OUT:

leggings with nothing over them

spandex all-green jumpsuits (?)

bootyshorts

ugg boots

Luckily I wasn´t caught wearing anything in the OUT category, but I didn´t have anything from the IN side either, although in elementary school I definitely had red All-Stars and flood pants. I won´t post a photo.

I suppose the real reason we were in Milan was for the opening competition of the 2011 Bouldering World Cup Season. That was pretty fun too, I guess... :) I thought the problems were hard; they felt very powerful and I didn´t. I ended up in 8th place, just out of the finals, which is a great start to the season, but still leaves room for improvement!

Japan´s Akiyo Noguchi and myself in Qualifiers

Thanks to Pasquale Mangione for the photos!

The next competition isn´t until May 7 in Dragomer, Slovenija, which has given us a lot of time for climbing outside in the sun in all the cool places around Innsbruck.

It has been wonderful to be outside so much already, because soon there will be competitions every weekend and schedules will start getting busy!

Route Nationals/My Birthday!

Last weekend Movement Climbing + Fitness in Boulder, Colorado hosted the USA Sport Climbing National Championships. It also happened to be my 22nd birthday!

Qualifiers were on Friday and the format couldn't have been more anti-me: 7-1-7; seven minutes for the first route, one minute transition, seven minutes on the second route. No rest period! Surprisingly I finished the first route. It was one of the most fun gym routes I've ever done. And all the holds were green which is my favorite color! Being a boulderer, and because we had a mere one [1] minute rest I did not get far up our second route, which gave me a 7th place combined score.

The next afternoon I competed in Speed Climbing for the first time in five years. Now, I know how the general climbing community feels towards the discipline of our sport that is racing up walls, so if you're reading this please don't tell anybody! Anyways it was fun, I got 4th place, and I need to run more. I blamed my wheezing on the Colorado altitude. Nobody needs to know I spent the past five weeks in Boulder...

Racing right along to the Lead Finals! There were twelve men in finals and nine women, and we were brought out and introduced.

I am way over on the left in yellow!

Photo by Dane Cronin

After our introductions, we were able to preview our finals routes. The women's route was blue and the men's orange. Every single hold on our route was a pinch, and every hold on the men's route was a sloper.

Photo by Dane Cronin

The running order is reversed for finals so I was the third girl out to climb. The finals route for lead was extremely similar to our last finals problem at Bouldering Nationals... Just longer. (See photos on my ABS blog post! I am right!) When I walked out of isolation I was excited to climb the blue pinchy route! It was very fun, and even had a little dyno in the center.

Photos by Dane Cronin

I fell off near the top going from this blue left hand pinch to this blue right hand pinch. My result in finals was second place!! The blue pinches spit off every girl except Sasha DiGiulian who easily pinched her way to the top with her 5.14c little girl hands. Unfortunately, finals only counted for 85% of the end result, and the 15% of being in 7th place in qualifiers sunk me down to 4th place at the 2011 Sport Climbing Nationals.

NOTE: After recent notifications scoring errors have been fixed, final results changed, and I have officially been bumped up to second place!! :)

The Champ! Miss Sasha :)

please note the blue pinches

Photo by Dane Cronin

To kill time while the scores were being deciphered there was a Best Dressed competition, the winner of which was voted on by the spectators. I was honored to be one of the top two with Paige Claassen. I was lookin' pretty fly but I'm pretty sure we tied.

 

Photos by Dane Cronin

The scores still weren't quite tallied so all that fashion show excitement was followed by Taylor leading "Happy Birthday" being sung to me by the entire gym. Then finally the award ceremony.

SCS Nationals was a super fun comp, but I was turning 22 at midnight and it was birthday party time. Check out these highlight videos by Jon Glassberg with LT11.

Women's Highlights

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=22007009&server=vimeo.com&show_title=0&show_byline=0&show_portrait=0&color=ffffff&fullscreen=1&autoplay=0&loop=0

Men's Highlights

http://player.vimeo.com/video/22007655

From Bishop to Boulder

For someone who isn't in school and doesn't have a "real" job I've been super busy! Taylor, myself and our Canadian, Thirza recently road tripped together from Bishop, CA where I spent two lovely months, to Boulder, Colorado.

Home Sweet Home in Bishop

Goodbye, Love!

I've spent the last month in Boulder utilizing the numerous facilities here and trying to get back in plastic shape for this summer's world cup season.

Although it is training time, you can't come to Colorado and not climb outside... I've also been playing around in local areas like Horsetooth Reservoir and the Satellites with good friends/badasses like Angie Payne. (Not to drop any names or anything...) Cool stuff can happen when girls tag team boulder problems like the classic Moon Arete (V9).

A few weeks ago I traveled to Philadelphia, PA for the Junior Indoor Bouldering Championships. I attended this event last year to help with the competition and teach bouldering clinics the day after the event. I thoroughly enjoyed working with these motivated kids so much that I couldn't stay away. This year was just as fun. Be sure to watch out for some of these fresh young guns in the future: Solomon & Grace Barth, Devin Cooley, Jackson Tankersley, Emily & Elizabeth Mulloy, Zoe Steinberg and one of the most inspiring youths out there, Ashima Shiraishi.

Last week I had the privilege of climbing with Zoe and Ashima again in Hueco Tanks, Texas. Some of the older boys on the Movement Climbing Team spent spring break in the bouldering mecca and I was lucky enough to be able to tag along with Coach Taylor. Needless to say it was never boring being on a climbing trip with a fistfull of high school boys far outnumbering the females. It was hot, hot, hot in the desert but somehow we still managed to take down a few boulders.

 Assisted Brushing

Photo: Tucker Samuelson

Photo: Tucker Samuelson

One of the most motivating experiences I've ever had was the day I spent climbing with Ashima. Brett Lowell and Jason Kehl from Big Up Productions were down in Hueco shooting with Ashima and her coach, not-that-old-school badass from "back in the day" (aka like five years ago) Obe Carrion.  That girl is a powerhouse, and her climbing movements are so natural it's mind blowing. What I enjoyed most about being able to spend time climbing with her is her positive attitude towards the sport. Honestly, she truly doesn't understand how talented she is, and that makes her a very special kid. Here's a link to Jamie Emerson's blog "B3 Bouldering" to read more about all of her amazing accomplishments in Hueco this past spring break.

http://www.b3bouldering.com/2011/04/04/ashima-in-hueco-tanks/

After spending six days in the park, we finally got our fill of wildlife on our final day in Hueco. Within the same five minute time period we ran across javelinas (mini wild pigs) and a nasty rattle snake! Regardless of how many cacti I had tripped over or bumped into in that week, walking around in flip flops was never the same again after the snake encounter.

Photo: Anders Rasker

We exited the park shortly after this sighting. This trip definitely wasn't boring. In the short, hot week we spent a stone's throw away from Juarez, Mexico, I managed to take down about three times as many Mexican donuts that are in this photo.

I also did a few fun boulder problems including Tequila Sunrise (V11),  Pumped Full of Semen (V8/9), Baby Face (V7, very cool!) and the playful Mexican Chicken (V6). There may be more that I have forgotten. Needless to say, Ashima's weekly ticklist far overshadows mine. Here's a cool video of Mexican Chicken shot by Keegan Ridgley. I still can't figure out how to upload videos onto this thing!

http://www.facebook.com/alexjohnson15#!/video/video.php?v=10150119356544685

 We left the Texan desert exhausted, tan and unbearably filthy. I returned to Boulder, CO just in time to start training for the USA Climbing Rope Nationals taking place the very next weekend!

Adios!