Busy Friday Afternoon
Friday afternoon, my father drove Tijl, Liselotte, Julie, Anak and me to the airport of Charleroi to join the rest of the Belgian team. There was a lot of traffic, so we almost missed our plane to Kranj in Slovenia for the last European Youth Cup competition of the season. Our hotel was at 1 km from the gym, so we went to and fro on foot.
Qualifications
I climbed my first qualification route really good. Although I haven’t been able to train to my full extent the last couple of weeks due to a small pain in my arm, it went excellent and I only fell at three holds from the top. This was good for a first place together with Molly, Hannah and Franziska. In between the two qualification routes, we went back to the hotel to rest. Lying on the bed, I fell so fast asleep that I didn’t hear Nicolas Collin knocking on my door when it was time to go back to the gym. Liselotte went to the hotel desk to call the phone in my room. Annoyed by the noise, I picked up the phone and hung up again to stop the thing from ringing. Although I didn’t really answer the phone, it succeeded in waking me up. Because of this, we arrived too late in the gym to watch the demonstration of the second qualification route. Nevertheless, I managed again to reach the third to last hold. This wasn’t bad at all. Only Molly and Hannah passed this hold and topped the route. I was ranked third after the qualifications.
Finals
The next day, five Belgians could line up in the finals: Nicolas, Chloé, Anak, Loïc and me. Loïc won the competition and the 2012 cup. Anak and Jessica Pilz fell at the same place, but Anak became second after application of the time rule. In the final 2012 score however, she finished first. Chloé became ninth, such as myself. Nicolas surprised with a sixth place. The speaker didn’t know how to pronounce my name and kept saying Celine Supers, which was quite funny, but I liked it a lot as I sometimes call myself Super Céci. I am quite proud to have finished 8th in the final ranking at the end of my first year in the European Youth Cup.
Ljubljana
Our plane only taking off Monday in the late afternoon, we filled up the time with a visit to the capital of Slovenia. There was a souvenir machine in which we had to insert 1 euro and 5 eurocents. Then we had to pull a handle. This needed some force, which I hadn’t expected, so I hesitated a while, pulled again and out came my souvenir. The 5 eurocents had been transformed into an oval-shaped coin in which the dragon of Ljubljana was stamped. Not having pulled the handle in one go, my coin came out a little bit waved instead of just straight.