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BK ATHLETE RIKU IN JAPAN: climbing competition in Tokushima and the closing of home gym Crux Kyoto
Boulderkeskus’ young star of the athlete team, Riku Sinivirta, moved to Japan at the end of August 2021 and he has been sharing his everyday life with us ever since. In his latest blog post, Riku is sharing with about his competition experienc in Tokushima and how were the last climbing days in his home gym Crux Kyoto. You can read more about Riku and watch his interview here. Riku’s previous blog posts can be read here and here, here and here.
Climbing competition in Tokushima
After the competition at Addict Climbing, I was super motivated for the next competition in Tokushima on May 2nd. Last time, I took second place on the podium and I knew that I had a chance to win. There was one week left until the competition, during which I visited many different gyms with a friend of mine to do competition simulations. I of course climbed at my home gym Crux Kyoto as well.
The competition was at Roots climbing gym in Tokushima prefecture near the prefecture of Kagawa. My grandparents live in Kagawa so I decided to visit them at the same time. Kagawa is famous for its Udon noodles, which taste delicious. I ate them every day. Two days before the competition, I went to climb for one last time at Stance Bouldering where there are a lot of modern and challenging problems.
On the competition day, I was feeling in shape and I went to eat some more Udon noodles for lunch before the competition. When I arrived at the gym, I started warming up right away and observing other competitors. I immediately noticed the winner of the last competition and some other competitors, which were also competing in the previous competition. From last time I knew that only the winner and one other competitor were really strong, which was a big relief. I was now pretty sure about getting to finals so I was able to continue my warm up without being too stressed out.
Udon noodles
It was only when I started warming up on the wall that I noticed feeling a bit heavy and my movement being rather slow – I had eaten too much lunch. Realising this caused a bit of a panic reaction in me, but I was about to compete so I had to do my best despite the situation. The competition problems were really challenging and I didn’t perform as I had hoped. After the qualifications, I was feeling a bit down, and I wasn’t sure if I would make it into finals with two tops and a few bonuses. Surprisingly, I managed to get a spot in the finals and, after I had digested my lunch, I was fully ready for finals.
Qualifications
In the finals, there were two problems and both of them were absolutely superb. The first one had a powerful coordination move right at the beginning and the end part had a cool sequence which wasn’t too hard. I’m not very good at powerful moves, but I was able to do the move in a few tries and managed to climb the whole problem. My body was moving really well and my fingers were perfectly warmed up. I was pretty sure that I would be able to climb the next problem as well, but it turned out to be a lot more difficult than what I had thought. The last move was the crux: a jump to a Morpho ball which is my nemesis climbing hold. I managed to try the top move a few times, but I realised quickly that it just wasn’t possible for me.
One of the final problems.
As a result, I was again in second place with the difference of a few tries. Last time’s winner won again. I was a bit disappointed in my performance, because there was so much left to improve on. I should have trained slab climbing more and above all, eaten slightly less before the competition. I was nevertheless happy about my climbing in the finals and the fact that my body moved in the way I had hoped for. For next time, I will be able to avoid these mistakes and train smarter.
After the competition, I spent a couple of days more with my grandparents and ate a lot of Udon noodles again.
Closing of my home gym
After the competition, I started climbing again at my home gym at Crux Kyoto. My training was going well and I was inspired by a lot of talented climbers with whom I got the chance to climb. I got the idea to climb all of the problems in the gym which has been a long-time dream and goal of mine. A little before the middle of the month, however, there was an announcement that the gym would close on Sunday 29.5.
The closing of the gym didn’t come as a big surprise to me as my coach had already been saying for a few months that it might happen. Until the closing of the gym, I was climbing there even more than usual as I knew that it might close.
On the last opening week, the gym was packed with people from all over Japan. Usually the gym feels crowded on normal weekends with about 40 people, but now there were nearly a hundred climbers on weekdays. Luckily the situation calmed down by the weekend and the number of climbers went down to 60. On Saturday evening, there was a “quick” routesetting shift in the gym which lasted until four in the morning. The routesetting team set around 8 or 10 problems as gifts for customers who were coming on the last day. I was exhausted from test climbing problems during the night, but I forced myself to climb until the end.
Crux Kyoto
I guess it wasn’t very smart to climb while being so tired as all of my muscles were aching for several days after that. I, however, learned how to climb and try hard in a really tired state and it was my way of saying thank you to the wonderful climbing gym.
At the beginning of June, I had no motivation to climb. When I went to climb in other gyms, it just didn’t feel natural and climbing was annoying. I was still slowly getting back my motivation and next week I will go to Tokyo for a few days to climb.
Follow Riku and his journey in Japan and Finland on his Instagram account @ri9_blueriver
Warming up before the competition.
