Swiss Ice Climbing Championship in Saas Fee

This last weekend in Saas Fee there was the Swiss Ice Climbing Championship. This year it was organized on the structure where annual Ice Climbing World Cup takes place, and I think it was great idea. All the participants have an opportunity to climb on the structure just before the World Cup and get the feeling of type of climbing there. As usual we had two disciplines speed and lead. In qualification for lead we had two routes which were fairly easy that everybody can enjoy climbing. 8 finalist were selected for the elite group including Sam and myself. I was climbing last in the final. Apparently I was too much set for the victory, so I was climbing a bit in a hurry. Of course when you are hurrying too much you don't pay enough attention how you put your ice axe. This was my mistake and on one of the moves my ice axe slipped, so I ended up on the 7th place. Too bad since I had good pace and enough force to finish the route. In the elite category victory went to Kevin Huser.
After the lead we had a finals for speed on a very bad ice. It was more like a snow than ice! For the final I climbed one route with fifi and one route with ice axes! )) after several awkward  runs i ended up on the first place, which gave me a little bit of relieve after my disappointing climbing in lead final. All in all it was really nice competition and I would like to thank Silvan and his crew for preparing the routes and also all the sponsors who made this event happen. Yes one more thing! It was really nice party after the finals with a life music. I don't remember the name of the band playing this night, but they were great! Thanks go to them as well! Next weekend is World Cup in the same Saas Fee, which should be even better! See you there!