This competition was awesome! It was my first time competing in an Open competition and I was competing with Daniel Woods, Jon Cardwell, Vasya Vorotnikov, Jimmy Webb, and some of my USA climbing friends.

All of the routes were tough. Unlike youth comps, they didn't have any easy, make you feel good about yourself routes in qualifiers. The first route was mostly slopers and huge pinches. The second route was similar to the first with TONS of slopers and pinches, but it was much more balancey and beta intensive with a huge feature you had to work around. The third route was filled with pinches and nasty slopers where you had to dyno off a horrible hold to the finish. AWESOME, but hard routes. I was excited to flash the first and third route, and get the high point (falling on the finish hold) of route two. I finished qualifiers in first place!

Finals was later that evening. They took 9 ladies and 9 guys to finals. I was 17th in the running order. The finals route was insane! It was long, tough, and VERY different from youth routes. The 2nd and 3rd holds were nasty slopers that you had to mantle off to get to the 4th hold which was also a sloper. I ended the competition in 8th place, after a foot slip midway up the route. Overall, I had an amazing time at the competition, especially getting to hang out and climb with my idols. Can’t wait til next year!!