In September I had the great pleasure of competing at the FISU University Climbing World Champions in Koper, Slovenia; a competition I had been selected for after coming second at the BUCS climbing championships in February. As a youth climber I had previously spent a large amount of my time between the ages of 10-18 training in order to be able to compete on the world stage, representing team GB. Whilst I have been partially successful with this, having competed at European competitions in 2018, I have been unable to compete internationally, after being dropped from the GB team for one year only to get re-selected for the team and then have my competitions cancelled due to COVID. Following from this I have been unsuccessful in getting selected from the Senior GB team and was unsure if I would get the chance to compete at a world championships. Getting selected for the FISU World Championships was very exciting for me after many years of working towards this goal. Whilst exciting this competition did come with a hefty price tag of £1500, and I am therefore very grateful for the financial support provided by the Jack Bloor Fund to help me deal with this cost.
Having been selected for the competition, I then began a rigorous training cycle with the aim of making semi-finals and potentially finals at this competition. Although I fell short of this goal, I was still relatively pleased with how I climbed during the competition and can report that I placed 32nd out of 58 people in the lead event and 41st out of 67 in the boulder. Whilst not quite achieving the high standards I had set for myself I am so pleased to have had the opportunity to compete at a World Championships representing Great Britain and competing against many other amazing and talented climbers from all over the world. An additional joy of this competition was the opportunity it presented to meet and talk to other climbers from all over the world, some of whom I have had the pleasure of climbing with since the competition. Thank you so much to the Jack Bloor Fund for supporting me and helping to provide me with this once in a lifetime opportunity.
Jack Bloor Race & Fund 