Busteni adventures 4

Finally, internet again thanks to Stephanie, who gave us the key to her room. Enough to write some e-mails and get some pictures online.

The qualifications long behind us, even the semi-finals were already yesterday. Just the finals left, but not for me...

(Here the up-to-date info and livestream from the event)

This was our last competition of the season. We don't have the money to go to Kirov, which is the last competition of the series in the beginning of March. And even if we'd find a Millionaire today we still couldn't go as you need to get your invitation and visa in advance.

I'm questioning all I did the past year and wonder what I should do next year, train again, quit and work, study, do nothing, become fat and boring?

Looking back on the competitions this is how I feel:

• disappointed and ashamed for not reaching the finals here in Busteni
• disappointed and ashamed because I fell out of the speed route after 2m. of climbing in shitty ice and now see that really slow climbers are way higher in the ranking
• disappointed because the lead-routes were made as speedclimbing routes, not a hard, technical or difficult move, just the speed counted
• disappointed and ashamed for all the work being put to send me all the way to Romania, spend money, change flights, spend more money and then, don't reach a thing
• disappointed and ashamed for spending a whole year on just climbing and not even reaching a top 5 ranking
• disappointed and ashamed to see that the iceclimbing worldcup is full of women (and men) who'd never even put a single icescrew in the ice!
• disappointed because I didn't finish my studies and don't have the feeling I get any support from my supervisor
• disappointed and ashamed because I don't know how to explain my results back home
• disappointed and ashamed because I don't have the feeling anybody will understand my results
• disappointed because iceclimbing doesn't have enough countries competing to become Olympic
• disappointed and ashamed because my results are not good enough for any proper sponsoring
• disappointed because I don't know what to focus on for the coming year, climbing, studying, working?
• disappointed because I don't have the feeling I can combine work, climbing and studying as money is always the biggest issue
• disappointed because, what shall I do now, focus again on the worldcup theatre or find a normal job and work?
• disappointed....
• ashamed, because what made me think I'm good enough to be the climber I want to be, and ashamed, as I don't know how to explain this back home...

Sorry, I'm just not too positive about it all...

I was hoping to close the season with something better then this all.

At least it was fun around the whole Worldcup Circus. We climbed real routes and saw a bit of the world: rice in Korea, ugly people in Romania, Swiss precision (not), Italian chaos and cancellations, German friendliness, and now up to Icelandic fun?

Wild bear detection counter for today: still no bears spotted!

Here our video from the Rabenstein Icefight, again, as I noticed it didn't upload correctly the previous time. Check out the Rabenstein website with video's, photo's and more about the event!

And the Icelandic duo Robbi&Gummi made a funny little 'introductionary' video about iceclimbing and their sponsor (Marmot). They proved Marmot jackets are almost waterproof, almost...