Ruben in his first qualification route – Archive Halenke
Last weekend there was the second Lead World Cup for me which took place in Puurs (BEL). Besides the stressful everyday life at school I had to manage another big competition and left home on Thursday before. As every year the competition was hosted at the Klimax climbing gym, a very steep competition wall outside which is by the way a good training facility. With a lot of motivation I went there to give all the best at my last international competition this season.
On Friday my first qualification route went up on the right hand side of the wall starting with some medium-difficult moves on crimps and longer athletic moves in the overhang. I felt good climbing into the overhang but as I got there I had problems to clip a quickdraw so that I lost concentration and some moves further wasn’t able to reach dynamically a two finger pocket. I fell into the rope although I wasn’t on my limit. Bummer!
This time on the the left hand side of the wall the second qualification route started on a slap with some slopy holds followed by powerful moves trough the overhang. In relation to the first qualification route I tryed to climb a bit more aggressive but couldn’t keep this climbing style due to shaky climbing sequences and fell unlucky before an important rest in the middle of the wall. Unfortuantely, it wans’t enough for the men’s semi-finals and I placed 41st in the end. As I have to settle in my new sport and boarding school (organisation of a new climbing wall, not that much time for training due to a full time-table at school and at the driving school and many other jobs aside) it made it really hard for me to train well and to prepare optimally for this Lead World Cup. Nevertheless, I think I made a small step forward.
David didn’t start this weekend focusing on the next and last big national Lead Cup in Würzburg in the beginning of October which is deciding who is going to be this year’s seniors German lead champion. Such as David I have still the chance to get German champion and will definitely train hard as much as I can.
I hope you guys are fine and keep climbing
Greez Ruben 
-> All results of the Lead WC in Puurs here!
-> Replay of the first qualification round men and women at the Lead WC in Puurs: