Pray for Ice - Europacup flash-trip

No news so far from the Icelandic volcano. So, other things to write about :)

This weekend I went for a 'flash-trip' to Innsbrück, Austria.
We left Friday, landed in loads of traffic-jams, arrived in Innsbrück around 10-11-ish in the evening, slept in the car and climbed on Saturday the 'Pray for Ice' comp...The first competition of the new Europacup series.
Pray for Ice the name is, as it's just dry and indoors. No ice at all...

Around 9 we subscribed, and got to know the rules and details: three routes, all increasing in difficulty, no time limit, men and women had to climb the same routes, no crampon kicking in the wall...
So, nervous as I am, I decided to start early. A bit trmbly, block in my throat, I climbed up the first meters of the first route. And, placed my axe a bit too far on a hold, popped off and...fell :(
Fail...
So I thought I was 'out', no chanches for the finals.
Second route went much better, but I didn't top out. I was just so pumped that my hands bailed out on me. With my fingers loosing grip on my axes I fell off trying to climb out of the roof-section.
Third route, supposed to be the most difficult one.
Climbing up, quite long and technical moves, pumpy... On every move I tried to rest my fingers by loosening the grip on the axes. I was slow, but got higher and higher. And, even topped!!!
I had no idea how the others climbed untill Lucy (Hrozová) told me she was the only one who climbed higher then me. So, I would be in the finals!
But then she also told me there was no finals for the girls. Meaning she would be first, and I would be second :)
The organisation told us there was not enough time to build a route for us and the mens route would be too difficult for us.
That all, with the way smaller pice-money for the girls, really disappointed me: driving 1000km's to Austria, no finals and not really respected as women in iceclimbing...

But well, it was a good practice. Now I know what I have to train:

• get faster
• get more endurance
• climb more 'fluent' (meaning: think fast!)

Dennis did better on the routes and topped all three. But, he climbed a bit too slow to be with the first six, the finalists. He got on 8th place.

Up for the next comp...Scottish Tooling Series, DryToolStyle and then the Worldcup in January?

Photo 1: Place 1-6 mens.
Poto 2: me in the second route
Photo 3: Dennis in the second route