Close but no cigar

It's no exaggeration to say that last year's trip to Romania didn't exactly go very smoothly. And to be fair I was crapping myself that this year might end up following a similar downward spiral. But it didn't. Luckily. So I made my way to the World Cup Finals in an almost surreal, supernatural state of relaxation. Of course, there were still the craters in the road, the blur of continuous car accidents, the stray rabid dogs and the horse and carts. But this time, barring the guy who tried to sell me a 2 month old baby for 1000 Lei, I managed to arrive in Busteni in very good time.

The Romanian way of putting road-kill to some use.


I hung out a bit, ate, got some half decent sleep and woke the next morning ready to climb whatever was put in front of me. And I say this because this year a new ''500,000'' euro climbing structure had been built in the town, ready for the comp. And that, I have to add, was about as organised as things got. Upon arrival at the competition it became clear that the schedule was a long way behind. Infact it turned out to be more than 2 hours behind. I knew I was second to last to climb. But I didn't anticipate that I would have to sit in isolation for almost 8 hours (7.695). If it wasn't for 'Spanner' (Justin) feeding me cold chicken kebabs through the window of the isolation room around dinner time, I probably would have sacked it off and gone home (great barbecue sauce too).

Maxim sleeping through isolation. Photo: Lukasz Warzecha


Eventually under Count Dracula's pitch black sky I emerged to have a crack on a route. And cutting a long story short I climbed okay, but made a mistake trying to set the pick correctly on a particular hold. Which sucked all my time. The next day the semi-finals got abandoned after someone ate too many pies and broke a hold and no suitable replacement could be found. So with the schedule already behind time, the competition jumped forward to finals stage. Unfortunately for me, Evgeny Krivosheitsev had just beaten me by as little as a throw of an arm. So I missed out on making my first appearence in a World Cup final. 'Krivo' is a true competitor, so there was little sympathy coming from his corner. We thought about putting sleeping pills in his drink too, but no such pills were available at the time, so that plan was quickly floored.

After complaining about his mere 3 hours (!) of isolation before the final, the newly upgraded T4000 terminator prototype flowed his way between the ice and rock holds to another very precise and unflappable victory. Leaving him with 6 wins out of 6 in the season's competitions. Hee Yong give him a pretty good scare coming super close to a top out of the M12 onsight. But for all of us outside of Cyberdyne Industries, we're all going to have to go home and train that bit harder for next season. And with that the post comp party began. Of course I could tell you about the massive consumption of alcohol, the outrageous dancing, the wild antics, the general shinanagans and the rest. But that's what Facebook 'tagging' is for. So I'll leave it there.

The new T4000 code named 'Bendler'. Credit: Marc Beverly