Bauernmeisterschaft Rabenstein 2013

We were on the weirdest event ever.
The Rabensteiner Bauernmeisterschaften.

Where local farmers do a relay with hay-sledging and iceclimbing.
And when you win, you get a sheep. What better price could you ever imagine! Just 'priceless' :)

See here the result.

(Oh, yes, that song is Dutch, about a yodel-boy, thats why...)

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Bauernmeisterschaft Rabenstein 2013

By Marianne van der Steen

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Bauernmeisterschaft Rabenstein 2013 from Marianne van der Steen on Vimeo.

Rabenstein IWC

The very inventious mobile icewall used for the speedclimbing demo in the centre of Meran.
Quick thought: can't we use this to promote iceclimbing?

Rabenstein didn't really go as planned.
After a nice break in Arco I thought I was ready for the comp.
But I guess the stress of making it in time to Rabenstein with a broken gearbox and more 'endless-Marianne-thoughts' wasn't helping me.



Dennis asked if I could please stop trying to burn a hole in the ceiling of his campervan.

I ended 13th after a slow quarterfinal where it took me longer then expected to find the right way to use the holds and the insecure climbing in the semi's gave me a time-out before I was pumped.
The disappointment didn't help with the speedclimbing either and there I ended lower then ever too...



Dennis did slightly better when it was so warm that he got a block of ice the size of a microwave on his chest when climbing the qualifications and thus didn't reach the semi's.
But as he's looking solid on speed he made it to a 4th place :) He's now even 2nd in the overall ranking!
See his blog for more pics/stories.





That performance overruled our disgust to Romania and the awful experience we had last year on that comp... We're going to Romania again... Hoping to get Dennis to a first place in the worldranking.

That all leaves us 1,5 weeks left in the Alps.
Time for real ice!

Worldcup 2013 and 2014 Olympics

...and there it is. The 2013 Worldcup schedule.

The UIAA announced the schedule for 2013 with some new things and some old things.

Old: Worldcup in Busteni (why?) I'm surprised. If you read my post about the last Worldcup there, you can understand why I'm 'slightly' surprised. (See here, here and here)

New: Worldcup in Rabenstein (Italy). The enthusiasts of the local icewall there have done a good job last years organising a fun and proper competition and for that they're rewarded with a Worldcup! Congrats!

And this year there will be a championships again. They chose Kirov (Russia) as the location. So I guess I'll have to travel there this year (better start collecting money now...)

I'm not going to join all the Worldcups in the schedule this year and climb more outdoors. The 'ultimate' climb for me is a mixed/ice route on a natural wall. The Worldcup is fun (and sometimes not), but pureness is where my heart is.

The Schedule:

January 5-6 2013, UIAA Ice Climbing Worldcup Cheongsong, South Korea

January 12 2013, UIAA Ice Climbing Youth World Championship, Saas Grund, Switzerland

January 18-19 2013, UIAA Ice Climbing Worldcup, Saas Fee, Switzerland

January 26-27 2013, UIAA Ice Climbing Worldcup, Rabenstein, Italy

February 7-9 2013, UIAA Ice Climbing Worldcup, Busteni, Romania

March 8-10 2013, UIAA Ice Climbing Worldcup and Championships, Kirov, Russia


I often have bad comments about the Russian part of the iceclimbing Worldcup.
There are too many Russians taking part and the rules seem to be bend to allow them all, the routesetters in Busteni did a bad job, the Russian judge made some really bad mistakes, it's hard to communicate with most as their foreign (non-Russian) language is limited and one Russian seemed to have a crush on me (and that was just a bit too much).
But theres one Russian who is working incredibly hard (together with others I suppose) to get iceclimbing to a higher level.
He managed to get iceclimbing to the Olympics!
For the first time ever iceclimbing will be shown as sports on the Olympic games.
Not as official Olympic sports yet, but as every sports starts like this on the Olympics, it's a good starts to something higher :)
Sochi, Russia 2014 will be the place.
Very, very, very good job Pavel Shabalin!

Meanwhile it's way too warm here to think of climbing ice.

It's sunny, warm and I'm busy with my lost luggage, the trip to Iceland, my work and yesterday evening we joined with thousands of others the Wednesday night skate. 
It all was quite slow but fun!
Totally motivated to go out skating again :)

Wednesdaynightskate with Rens, Koen, Suus and Arvid :)
Photo taken by a motorbike policeman with brown teeth.

Rabenstein and a car breakdown

Travelling for a month now, and the only thing we do is climb!

Life is good. Except when your house suddenly breaks down.

In our case our house is our van, our bed, our kitchen, our...everything. We already took out the axle in the middle of the night, tried to repair some other things, but nothing worked, the last thing it could be were the ball-bearings for the left front wheel...And for such an old car they unfortunately couldn't be here in time... Stress! As we were going to catch a flight tomorrow to be in time for the next competition in Romenia.

Luckily there is something we call 'help from heaven', or in other words the Dutch 'ADAC' (ANWB). As Dennis in insured for this unfortunate things we got a new car and the lovely van will be transported back home. So we're just in time for our flight, just in time for the next competition :)

The only thing we miss now is our kitchen and our bed and out movie-room with bass-speakers... so we'll have to sleep in a hotel or some togight and just enjoyed the slow unhealthy MacDonalds internet. It's even so bad: Vimeo is restricted, so we can't upload videos from here. Meaning our two new videos have to wait for a bit longer...

The last week we climbed together with Jelle, Marc and our iceaxes in Kandersteg and Kietal and we just climbed in Rabenstein on the icefight.

My 'head was not in a good mood', meaning I was nervous, insecure and didn't believe in my own strength. So, in the qualifications I fell pretty early. I thought I was out, but some other climbers did as bad/good as me, so I was still in. With a bit a better head, but still to slow because I felt pretty insecure and uncomfortable I climbed up to a 4th place. Not bad, but 4th feels like 'just nothing', still on stage, but not the best I could do.

Hopefully better next time... :)