18: Chloé Caulier, Belgian Boulderer
Chloé is a boulder and lead climber competing in the world cup circuit for the Belgian team! This is my first time talking to a Belgian climber, so in this episode we’ll learn a lot about their fairly newly established national team and how funding works, and we also talk about body image with being a more muscular climber, as well as the difficulties that come with being a female climber.
Timestamps
Timestamps of discussion topics
0:00 - Introduction/China stress
3:35 - Going into simulation
6:50 - Climbing beginnings
10:39 - Transitioning from youth to senior circuit
12:31 - Favorite discipline
17:44 - Training with dad vs. with the Belgian team
23:05 - Training with male athletes
27:31 - Does the Belgian team train together?
31:36 - Belgian athlete funding
34:01 - Gaining strength too easily
40:03 - Body image
44:27 - Being the only woman on the Belgian team
49:32 - Training with Stasa
58:06 - Machismo in the climbing gym
1:03:02 - 2024 goals
1:04:32 - Discord Q: Are there any language difficulties within team Belgium?
1:06:16 - Discord Q: What do you do in isolation?
1:07:28 - Discord Q: What kind of music do you listen to?
1:09:32 - Where to find Chloé
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My family is not a climbing family and I'm in Belgium so it's not a climbing country.
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I arrived to a point I had to stop physical preparation because it was not good for my
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climbing because I take a lot of muscle and quite fast. If you have more muscle it won't be so
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feminine so maybe calm down. I already heard that. Welcome to another episode of the That's Not Real
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Climbing podcast. I'm your host Jinni and I'm excited to introduce my guest Chloé Caulier.
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Chloé is a boulder and lead climber competing in the World Cup circuit for the Belgian team.
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This is my first time talking to a Belgian climber so in this episode we'll learn a lot
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about their fairly newly established national team and how funding works and we also talk about body
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image with being a more muscular climber as well as the difficulties that come with being a female
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climber. Hope you enjoy this episode with Chloé. Okay great. Well yeah how are you doing today? Are
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you preparing to travel to China for the first World Cups of the season? Yeah today I'm resting
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and I will train Wednesday still in Europe and then I will travel on Friday so yeah I
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leave soon and I feel ready for China. Yeah have you been there before? Yeah I've been in China
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several times because there was a lot of bouldering World Cups before in China several times in
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Chongqing. I've already been in in Shanghai, Wuzhong, a lot of places. Okay exciting. I'm also
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going to be in China soon just for like unrelated family travel but it actually really stresses me
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out going there just because it's so locked down with like apps and everything that you're allowed
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to use so yeah I hope it turns out okay for you. It's really stressful for me. It's quite different
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you cannot use all the internet stuff like in Europe or in the US but because I'm used to go
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I think I have my habits and I know how to deal with it so it's okay. Yeah I guess you probably
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know better than me. I haven't been in 10-15 years so you have to find a good VPN. If you have the
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good VPN it's good. See what I'm worried about is the map apps don't work and then I can't read
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Chinese very well. Yeah you really have to use a map in advance. For example for me
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I use it in the hotel before I go out so I'm sure that I'm not lost during the way. Yeah
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it's stressful but how do you feel in general for the upcoming season? Are you excited nervous for
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it to start? Yeah I'm quite excited and I feel also in shape so I really want to climb at my level
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and just enjoy competing. Yeah I did some simulation with other teams lately and it went well
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so if I can climb like this training camps it will be good. Yeah who are you training with?
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We had two or three training camps with other teams so it was the Belgian team with for example
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the Slovenia, the Austrian and the German teams so we did both bouldering and combined simulations
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so it was a lot of OQS athletes who were there and some of the boulders a specialist
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so it was very interesting because yeah it's good teams so it's also good to see where you are before
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the season starts and it can give you confidence if you are in good shape so it's good before the
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World Cup that you know where you are and what to expect. Have you ever gone into these training
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camps and then realized that you're feeling much worse than you thought you were? Yeah I already had
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this experience last year to be honest the last year wasn't so good already during the simulation
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but I was still believing in myself that I could change things during the next sessions and to
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improve but yeah then finally it was not I was not improving and the the competition season didn't
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go so well but yeah since then I made a lot of changes so it's different. Okay yeah that must
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be really stressful yeah like I can't imagine going into it seeing all how strong everyone else
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is and then realizing that you're not where you should be. I feel like I kind of experienced that
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recently climbing in a competition where I was like just warming up and everyone else was way
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stronger than me and already going into the competition I was in a bad like mental state
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because I was like even during my warm-up I can tell that everyone is way better and that's really
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stressful. But it's also a part of competition and there is I would say that there is no rule
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because sometimes you are pretty bad at the warming up and then you do the best comp of your life
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so it's also important to not to to stress too much about the warming up or how you feel in the
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beginning of the session because sometimes with the I think with the adrenaline of the comp or the
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mental game you can really change your climbing when you are on the first border and then it goes
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well. Sometimes it's also the opposite you feel so strong in the warm-up zone and then you do your
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your worst comp so it's not always a link between the the last sessions and the warm-up and the
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conditions. Yeah you also need to believe in you until the last last minute. Huh okay yeah I'll
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keep that in mind but yeah I'm glad you're feeling strong after the simulation and hopefully things
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will go well. Thanks. Yeah how did you for those who don't know how did you get started climbing
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and when did you start competing? Yeah for me it was I started randomly I would say because my
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parents are not climbers my family is not a climbing family and I'm in Belgium so it's not
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a climbing country we don't have mountains we don't have a lot of cliffs so it was basically
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an opening day at the gym so it was for free you could climb for free and it was close to my house
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so my parents saw the advertising that we can climb for free that day so they were like okay
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we can try with the kids it's a good activity for the weekend so I went there with my parents and
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my brother and it was my brother and I who climbed and I really liked it like from the first route
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I wanted to go to the top and then I wanted to try every route of the gym and I didn't want to stop
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my parents had to to pull me out of the gym so yeah I just asked them to to to be registered to
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a club and to start it every week so that's what they did and since then I never stopped.
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How old were you? I am 27. Or when you started? When I started I'm 27 and I started around
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eight years old I think. Okay and when did you start competing was it as soon as you
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signed up for the club you started competing? No I think it was like two or three years after
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so around 11 years old 11 or 12. And was that like local competitions or did you I guess already
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start doing international competitions? I think my two first comps were kids competition like local
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local local comp and then I firstly went to national competition but also because in Belgium
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we didn't have a lot of regional or intermediate level so it was or really easy comp or national.
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Yeah that makes sense and I guess did your brother also end up climbing or did he not like it as much?
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From the first time he didn't continue but then he climbed later like when I
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when I was already in the team so I think it was yeah maybe five or seven years later
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just like this but not competing or not expecting any results it was just for fun.
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He's better at tennis. Oh okay. It's a good tennis player. Does he like compete in tennis?
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Is like competition running in your family? Yeah he competed in tennis and he was
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apparently he was very talented in a lot of sports like football and tennis so with balls he's very
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good but he's not a competitor like me. He's not really interested by competitions. I think he's
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even more talented than me in sports in general but it's just that he don't want to compete and I am a
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a real competitor so from from being a kid I remember also at school I wanted to be the
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best in the sports class and always so yeah I can relate with that. So your experience doing
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youth competitions how do you feel like that compares to doing elite competitions and how
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is that transition? For me the transitions was quite good because I remember I did the
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World Cup finals just after I was in the first year of in the senior categories. Oh wow. So the
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transition was good but the difference was I would say mainly the style. It's way more powerful in
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the senior for sure and also like the the fields because there is more people so you cannot do
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mistakes. I mean less mistakes than in the youth because in the youth we are less climbers and
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also the level was I think a lot of difference between the athletes. So for example you had the
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finalist and then there was a big gap between the others but in World Cups it's like everyone is very
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close to each other in terms of level. At least in the top 30 we can do I think everyone can do
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finals in terms of level but it's more about the strategy the mental game. So then do a lot of
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youth competitors end up dropping out before they reach the senior circuit? Yeah there's a lot of
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factors that we should take in consideration because your body can change and your
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maybe your goals in life can change as well because I know a lot of climbers who stop for the
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study for university things like that. And then I was looking through your competition history
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you've done boulder, lead and speed competitions. Yeah. It's I mean it seems like bouldering is your
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favorite but yeah is bouldering your favorite? Yeah I would say yes. Yeah the story is that I started
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with lead climbing because in Belgium there was no bouldering teams or groups it was mainly lead
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clubs. So I was very good in lead also in the European Youth Cups. I did finals, I made podiums
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and then I discovered bouldering because the first European Cups, bouldering European Cups started
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and I tried and it felt that I was even more good. I think because my body is better for the
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strength, sport, effort, shorter effort and yeah I'm more strong than endurance.
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So yeah bouldering came like naturally for me because I never trained it before
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before my first European Cups, Youth Cups. So yeah one moment I just chose because with school and
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everything it was better to to be specialized in one discipline and it paid off so it was a good
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choice in my opinion. Then climbing became an Olympian sport so and it was a combine with the
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three disciplines so it was a new challenge for me because I never speed climbed before and we
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didn't have the speed wall in Belgium so it was a big challenge to train it and to start from nowhere.
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So yeah that's why I started to do lead again and to start speed climbing. Then as soon as the
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first Olympics finished I stopped speed climbing because I don't like it so much. Oh really okay.
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It was mainly for the Olympics and now the next Olympics it's about lead and bouldering so
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I'm still doing both. I like lead a lot. I still prefer bouldering but both are very good. I really
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liked these disciplines. I guess I thought if you were like a more powerful climber you might like
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doing speed as well. But yeah I don't know one guy one specialist told me I am good for my experience
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for the experience I had at that time and I have a good body type for it but yeah just always the
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same repeating the same movements and what I like about climbing is the the variety that every
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session you can try different moves you can learn something every day so yeah speed is not my my
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thing but I liked it like it was good to learn a new sport and to to improve because you see your
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your times getting better and better so it's quite satisfying but I think at one point when you are
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fighting just for small details and always doing the same yeah I don't like it so much.
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Yeah you kind of hit like a plateau and then you're just shaving off the top of your head.
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Yeah but it's also fun to watch so yeah. So you said that there was no speed wall in Belgium.
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Is there still no speed wall there or like where did you go to train? So now we have.
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It's also a matter of time because the as the government supported olympic sports they wanted
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to provide the speed wars but it just took time and it was a lot of work. So yeah I think it's
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just took times and it's I think always the same with administration and everything like this that
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it takes more time than the time we had at that time. So I think we had this first speed war
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very close to the qualifying event so before that I was going to to the Netherlands or the
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or Germany to train it so it was a lot of travel because for me Germany it's two hours by car
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and so to go and then two hours to go back and Netherlands it's one hour and a half.
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If I wanted to do double session a day for example ordering and speed I had to move a lot.
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It was very tiring. Yeah I guess I can see why that would make you not want to
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to speed more than you have to. Yeah okay yeah that makes sense and yeah I guess we can get into
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the Belgian team because you're the first person from Belgium that I've talked to on this podcast.
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So you mentioned that initially there was no Belgian team so what was training like without
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having a national team? Yeah it changed a lot. So yeah the first years there was a team but
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it was only in eight camps. There was no team for the bouldering camps because as I told you earlier
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there was no bouldering. The bouldering discipline didn't really exist in Belgium.
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Like it was not considered like a real discipline. It was more like you train a bit on a
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bouldering world for lead but you don't train for bouldering call.
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So yeah when I was doing lead camps we had a team but it was really not organized as it is now.
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It was one coach for all the group and the coach was not I mean he was doing his best but he was
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not very experienced and didn't know a lot about the high level the sport elite habits that we had
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to do, how to warm up, how to read the roots, everything so it was a bit like a parent.
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And for bouldering camps I went with my dad and my dad is not a climber but he's someone very
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organized and structured so it helped me to have this structure and for climbing I was quite alone
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just learning by myself. I also had my personal coach in Belgium so we tried to
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to improve after every camp. Like I filmed everything so he could watch it and we could
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learn some things and between camps we really work on what we saw on videos
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and I could really see the progress over the years. I think it was just slower than if I had a real
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team or a real structure but at that time I think there was a lot of countries in that in the similar
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situation and yeah with the years we built a team and yeah because for example the first
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World Cup I did I was alone in bouldering so it was one coach and me and now we have a real team
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we have three men, two or three women sometimes. It depends if it's in China I'm still the only
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woman to go now for example next week but when it will be in Europe we can have three women
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and we have also the physio, we have training camps in Belgium, we have national wars, training,
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national center so it's a lot of changes from the past and from what I knew at that time.
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Yeah you said that your dad was your coach for a while. Did he have any like sports background or
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like strength training background or anything? I don't know the name in English I will check.
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What is it called in French? BF. I can show you a picture. Sure. Do you see something? Oh okay yeah
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yeah um yeah I guess like pool or billiards. Yeah so he was the he was European champion in pool.
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So he was competitive but it was not physical sport so it's quite different but
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um but at least he had the the competitive way and the the structure so it helped me.
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On some points it helped me a lot and at some points it was also hard to to be with your dad
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it's sometimes it's it's not the same yeah you get annoyed by him or bored and you're like oh
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shut up don't tell me that at that moment I'm already stressed or something
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because he wants to he wants to do your best so he's pushing a lot and sometimes it's it's too much.
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And I mean I guess pool is quite different from climbing so did you ever feel like he wasn't
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qualified to be giving you advice? Yeah that's it. Yeah I didn't know that there were like
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competitions for pool either that's interesting. Do you ever miss like training before there was a
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whole team or is it always just much better training with a with a team in place? Sometimes
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it was also hard to be with a team I think especially in the transition period because
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I was the more experienced for a while so I was the one who pulled everyone you know so I couldn't
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really take the advantage to learn from the others at least in the first years
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and then it changed a bit like now we have very good men's athletes and so when I train with them
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they're really pulling me and it's good but also it's men's so it's not the same
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that if we train with if I train with women's of my level it's way better because it's
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I mean sometimes when a man does a movement and you are not sure you can do it you will say yeah
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but it's a guy so it's okay if I don't do the moves and then you see another woman who do it
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and you are like okay I have to do it now no excuses yeah I get that yeah it's it can be
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good and it's also bad sometimes but especially because we don't have other very strong women at
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the moment for the bordering team I am really the strongest so and from far so I don't learn from
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other women's I'm always pulling the others it's good for the country but for me personally it's
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sometimes hard not to learn so much during the training camps but yeah with the years we we also
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improve the quality of the training camps for example this year we went to Slovenia so with
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in Slovenia and Germany and they have a lot of strong women so it was good for me it was one of
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the the best preparation I could have because I could train with uh top three world cups at
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Leeds and it was good do you still find yourself when you're training with men you kind of feel
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like you don't have to be able to do the move because like they're men and then you're like
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a woman so it's like different or do you try to be able to compete with them as well
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um I would say in my personality I'm the woman who wants to beat the guys as well I mean for me the
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sex doesn't make any differences the way I complain more it's about the hate because sometimes
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the distance for example if you work on the big coordination or big jumps with men's it's quite
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it's quite hard to compare if they are taller than you for me it's hard to say if it's because
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they are taller or it's because I don't do it well or I don't push enough and for example last year
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I could train a little bit with uh Brooke Raboutou in Paris at the beginning of the year she's very
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small and smaller than me so sometimes I tried to jump and I was like wow it's far I don't I'm not
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sure I can do it and then she did it so I was like okay I can do it and then I I tried again
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but I think if it was a man maybe I should have stopped before trying more so it was good to
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to see someone else from my size or smaller doing it yeah so it's more about the distances than
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the the sex I would say yeah that makes sense I think I've also experienced something similar
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where um I see someone do a move and lots of times I can just be like oh well they could do it because
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they're like stronger than me and I'm like kind of weak but if I see someone who I know is less
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strong than me do a move then it kind of like lights a fire under my ass and I'm like I know
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I should be able to do this move like I am stronger than this person so you're so uh you're so
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competitor uh not at a serious level trying to be but I'm really weak yeah the mindset is there but
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the body is weak so I know that some countries don't get to train as a team because the country
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is too big like for example in the US a lot of people are kind of spread out and we try to
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have like a training center in salt lake now that brings a lot of people together
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but I don't think everyone gets to train together all the time I guess I mean Belgium is a bit
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smaller so do you guys train together on a regular basis um we don't have like a day a week
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something like this it's more that we receive the calendar of the next month and so for example we
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have a simulation on the beginning of the month and then a training camp after work in the end
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of the month something like this but it's not always the same days or the same dates it changes
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every month and we receive the the email from the national coach the month before so we can organize
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the we can organize it but it's new from last year before it we had less training camps and before
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we didn't have training camps because we didn't have the training center so sometimes it's also
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a small country so we know we know everyone like the the national teams it's mainly friends from
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from long time it's always the same people like we don't have a lot of new people it's not coming
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like 10 new people per year it's maybe one new people every two or three years so as we are
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friends and we we are all from the same city or around we also meet each other at the gyms at the
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commercial gyms i mean for like when you personally train you you meet the others and we can climb
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together so it's a mix of personal personal training together and training camps like
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officially organized by the federation
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yeah especially from two years ago now we have a very good one in in in brussels so the cap in the
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capital city it's uh it's called le camp de base so it ends the base camp in english
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uh there is a master of fire competition over there i don't know if you watched it
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tomoa was competing there last year i don't think i saw it but yeah if you didn't if you
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didn't watch you can watch on youtube it's a very good competition okay yeah i'll put the link in
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the description it's like the studio block masters or something like this it's like a
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not an official world cup but it was with a lot of world cup climbers
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but it was with a lot of world cup climbers and so we train in this gym which is very good for
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hard wooders there they have a lot of hard wooders and good route setters so it's very good yeah
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that's good i think it's surprising to hear that there's a commercial gym that sets boulders that
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are hard enough for world cup climbers i feel like i've always heard that they like world cup climbers
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can't climb in commercial gyms just because they don't set anything that's hard enough so
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yeah it's surprising to hear that i think it's true in a lot of countries but uh it's not the
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case in france or in belgium i mean in belgium it's from two years ago because before uh this
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gym didn't exist but i i train a lot in france because it's it's close to belgium i only drive
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two or three hours so i can go for the weekend or folk and in every every commercial gyms you
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can find hard boulders in paris maybe not far from paris but in the capital city you have a lot so
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it's good paris i think it's one of the best city to train for world cups and in terms of funding
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and support that you get as an athlete um i know some countries they get like support from the
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government for like uh being in you're like technically part of the army or something like
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that is it similar in belgium or no yeah and it also evolved with years but now i have a
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salary from the government to be not a military uh it's not a military salary it's a very sport elite
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from for the the olympic project so until i am the only in the olympic project i have a salary
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to to do my sport so it's very comfortable for me yeah that's good it's good yeah so you don't
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have to do any like you don't have to i guess divert your focus doing other like commercial
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setting or anything like that yeah the question if i didn't have that salary the the question would
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be what do i do next to training i can give course or i can do it set but it's also tiring
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and it takes time it's complicated to combine but i know a lot of world cup climbers have to do it
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but you said it only started two years ago where they started doing the government salary
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uh this salary was from the first olympic uh year but it was also for the preparation of the olympic
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so it was before 2020 i think it was 2018 when it started but at that time it was a half-time salary
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that i had better results so i could have the full time but it can change every year
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it's considering your results they evaluate you every year and you can also lose it in one year so
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it's not very sure for your long-term future but but for the moment for the olympic project
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it's very good to have that salary and the support from the government yeah that's
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that's good to hear there's a lot of people out there who are struggling with that so yeah it's
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good to know that you're you have some security yeah but okay yeah um switching gears a bit into
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i guess like body image related things um you have one of the more muscular builds of the
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female world cup competitors and you mentioned that you're very proud of it which is good
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do you feel like being more muscular just came naturally to you or did you work specifically to
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get bigger please excuse this brief intermission but i would just like to remind you that if you
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are enjoying this podcast please follow and rate it on your preferred listening platform
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if you're watching on youtube i would love to hear your discussion and thoughts in the comments
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below anything helps to push this podcast out to more people and get even more amazing guests on
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back to the show no it was quite natural uh i know that because i when i i saw the the pictures of me
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when i was a kid i was already muscular without climbing because i was not climbing before eight
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or nine years old and before that i was already with quite big shoulders and then i mean muscular
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arms so i think it's in my genetics um and i also i mean a lot of climbers i guess i trained the
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physical parts uh the fitness gyms and for the first years first years of international
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competitions but then i i also noticed that if i do too much i take weight and it's not so good for
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climbing and i also climb uh with too much strength and sometimes it's it doesn't impure at
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world cups because you have to to find the easiest way to climb a wall or to find
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better with techniques and using your for example your inner hooks or two hooks and then you have to
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pull your inner hooks or two hooks and not doing everything in your arms so my coaches also didn't
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want that i do fitness anymore i arrived to a point i had to stop i mean it's not stop but i did
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less uh physical preparation because it was not good for my climbing really also because i take
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a lot of muscle and quite fast i still train the physical part but more uh i think in a smarter way
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i do more specific exercises and i also work with uh with bands more than weights
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elastic bands uh things like that interesting so you had to stop because even like well i
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didn't think that your arms could ever be like too strong for climbing you know yeah but it's
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not really that i was too strong but because i think climbers can have a lot of strength
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but also can climb uh without using it or you know it's it's more about switching like
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sometimes it's good to to go strong for a move but then you have to to use your hips or your
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technique something like this and for me i mean it's specific to me so i don't want to to generalize
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this topic but for me it happened that at world cups i was missing boulders because i was not
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putting a heel because i was doing everything in the compression way or in the arms
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and yeah for me it felt impossible to do the move and then when i went out of the isolation
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the coaches showed me videos of other women which are also very strong but they could
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switch from a compression move to the hips move and to climb more smoothly more technically the
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this part of the boulder and so they could do the boulder and me i was climbing with too much strength
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in every move and i think climbing is always changing your rhythm your intensity so it was
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more about that it's it's more about me that i cannot use my strength in the proper way we just
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did less strength so i could i could use more my technical abilities and i think that's the
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thing i don't know if it's if it's clear it's quite specific to me but yeah that makes sense
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i mean yeah i guess i was always the under the impression that you always could get stronger
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and that you could always you should always try to get stronger but it's interesting to hear that
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maybe maybe not i think it's true that if you just want to measure your strength the finger strength
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the arm strength you can always improve but depends of what you need especially for competitions i
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think outdoor i could take more strength and it will help me i can work the boulder so i have time
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but at workup you have five minutes for boulder and if you do wrong beta because you have
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too much strength or you don't feel the good movement because of your strength it's bad but
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i think it's not the case of every climber i think some climbers have a lot of strength and can climb
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with it properly so you think maybe your weakness is like reading beta i think it's not reading but
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it's more feeling when i am climbing at competition because my reading is is often not so good
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is often very good from the ground but when i am in the boulder my ability to feel and to adapt
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on the moment can be bad depends also of the stress and how i train but uh yeah interesting to know
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um yeah going back to body image um did you always feel confident about the way that you looked and
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like your build yeah i think for me it never been a big problem to be muscular even when i was a
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kid or a teenager i saw a lot of other girls struggling with that because they saw that their
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shoulders became more muscular or something and it was hard for them to assume it as a woman
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and for me it was not a problem because i knew it was my strength i knew it was a tool for me
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climb good so i was quite proud of it and yeah at least in the climbing gym it's really okay for me
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sometimes it's harder when i am in a i don't know in a metro and i see people looking at me
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because i have big arms oh does that happen to you yeah yeah and so in restaurants or something if i
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have a a top or something where you see my arms sometimes i see people looking at me
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yeah it's not poor but i think for everyone you don't like to be looked at long
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uh yeah for me it's not polite it's weird to do that yeah i think i have a well not as similar
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of an experience but since i when i grew up i never did any exercise so i'm used to looking
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like a certain way um and i didn't start climbing until i was uh like 20 years old so since i never
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grew up doing any exercise i'm like not used to seeing my arms or my back being big and i'm like
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not used to the way i look wearing like a strappy top so it does kind of make me a little bit
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uncomfortable even though i'm like not that like bulky yet um but yeah it makes sense like i accept
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it because it allows me to do the moves that i want to do but yeah it definitely i think sometimes
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it like looks out of place yeah i think i was also lucky i was thinking about it when you were
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talking and i just remember that my my parents were also proud of that like i mean they were
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i mean they were really helping me to be proud of that like my father was always saying yeah chloe
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she has uh strong muscles and it's good i mean i think i already met climbers uh which have
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non-climbers parents and they were like yeah but only if you have more muscle it won't be so
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feminine so maybe calm down i already heard that and my parents were not like this at all they
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were really proud of me and uh supporting me for my choices so if it was good for for my climbing
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goals they were supporting me so i think it's also helped me to to be confident about that
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wow yeah i it would be really hard if i think like my parents said that it looked bad i think
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that would be pretty painful to hear was it like other world cup climbers or just like people that
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were in the gym at that time it was more uh when i was doing youth comps so it was international
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competitors it was belgian competitors in the national team but it was in the youth youth
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comps yeah so they didn't count they didn't continue at world cup level but yes they were
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still the best in our country at that time for for their age it's quite sad yeah that's a shame
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to hear geez yeah but it's good that your parents were supportive of it and i'm sure that helped
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with your confidence as well but okay um yeah moving on to you being i guess one of the only
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women on the belgian team so i think earlier you mentioned that there are a couple of other
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women on the belgian team now who will be participating in the european for a long time
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i was the only woman in the bouldering team in lead we always had good climbers because we had
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muriel sarkany we had uh anakva boven matthew pivovain so several climbers who made podium and
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also won world cups in lead but in bouldering we didn't have so much we had another chloe it was
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chloe grafstow she also won the world cup bouldering world cups i think it was in 2009
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something like this but i was not in the team that i was too young so when i started world cups i was
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the only woman in bouldering and now we have two other women but for example for this year they are
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not selected for the world cups because they are not strong enough they are only selected for the
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european cups but they could go at world cups only if they get good results at european cups
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so you can be selected in the in the season during the season yeah for the moment i am the
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only woman in the bouldering team i think also one of the discord questions was about this um
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would you prefer to have more female high level belgian competitors or do you like being like the
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dominant female competitor in the country um yeah i have a an ego of a competitor so it's good to
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be the best of course it's like for the ego it's nice but considering uh the problem to train as
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i told you before that i train only with men for years uh i think it would be better to have other
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strong women it would push everyone better and higher i think i think i could improve faster
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with other women as well so yeah i think in conclusion it would be better to have other
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strong women but yeah for sure it's like it's about 10 years i am the best in belgium and
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it's also good but it didn't it doesn't help me to to improve faster so it kind of it kind of allows
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you to win money in competitions when you're in belgium but then at the world cups it it gets a
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little bit difficult for you yes there are positive aspects and negative ones and yeah when i am in
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my country i can win the competition i can win money i can win the the salary because of that
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but when i am at world cups and i see other teams with a lot of strong women i see that the results
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are can be better because of that yeah do you ever feel i guess because of that do you ever feel
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intimidated when you're competing at world cups with other really strong women um i started world
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cup when i was very young i was 15 years old uh so at the beginning i was climbing against my idols
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so i was impressed so that time i was climbing against anashtar akio nobuchi julian wool and
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and there were the women i was watching at tv so yeah at that time i was really impressed
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but then when i i get good results and then the women of my age came i think i was on the same
375
00:48:27,680 --> 00:48:36,640
statues from my view but it also depends of the time of my life i think some some period i was
376
00:48:36,640 --> 00:48:42,160
less confident and i could be impressed by the others sometimes i felt very confident and i felt
377
00:48:42,160 --> 00:48:47,520
the best and i was not afraid of anyone so yeah it also depends of my mood
378
00:48:50,000 --> 00:48:59,600
but in general no i know we know a lot of climbers at world cups like i compete at world cups for
379
00:48:59,600 --> 00:49:08,400
more than 10 years i think so i know everyone almost everyone so it's more like friends or
380
00:49:08,400 --> 00:49:16,720
people i'm used to see every year so i think i'm not afraid anymore it's it's really like an
381
00:49:16,720 --> 00:49:24,320
it's an environment that you know it's less uh terrifying that's a new new environment or
382
00:49:24,320 --> 00:49:31,520
something you don't know and you also mentioned that um you got to train with stasha recently and
383
00:49:32,160 --> 00:49:39,280
um you really enjoyed that experience um what do you feel like i mean she's also like a really
384
00:49:40,080 --> 00:49:45,680
like muscular strong female competitor so what was your experience training with her
385
00:49:45,680 --> 00:49:50,880
yeah it was really good uh it's funny because we know each other for a long time we have uh
386
00:49:50,880 --> 00:49:58,000
um just one or two years difference so we competed at youth youth competitions
387
00:49:58,800 --> 00:50:05,840
against each other so we know we know each other for a very long time and uh i think we
388
00:50:05,840 --> 00:50:13,840
are we always uh appreciated each other but we never spent time together really it was just competing
389
00:50:13,840 --> 00:50:26,080
and um yeah it's it's funny because we are quite similar um in term of situation like she's the only
390
00:50:26,080 --> 00:50:35,040
woman she's uh with her parents i was with my my dad before the team started and still now i am
391
00:50:35,040 --> 00:50:45,600
the only woman in the belgian team so sometimes i can feel a bit alone uh yeah i think she feels the same
392
00:50:47,440 --> 00:50:53,280
and she's also training with a german team i train a lot with french french team because it's close
393
00:50:53,280 --> 00:50:58,640
to to my country so we have a lot of common points also because we are muscular and we are
394
00:50:58,640 --> 00:51:06,880
uh yeah we are quite uh in the same style of climbing so i don't know we had this idea
395
00:51:08,000 --> 00:51:14,400
at the end of last year because we we were invited in a duo con and we were in the same team in paris
396
00:51:14,960 --> 00:51:23,920
and it worked very well like the the personality matched the the climbing abilities also were
397
00:51:23,920 --> 00:51:28,480
complementary even if we are in the same style but for some details we were complementary
398
00:51:29,280 --> 00:51:34,480
and we really had fun at this camp so we said to each other okay we should train together sometimes
399
00:51:34,480 --> 00:51:44,560
so it could be nice so we discussed it after the season and stasha came to paris uh two times one
400
00:51:44,560 --> 00:51:51,840
week because i was training in paris at that moment and uh it was very good because for me
401
00:51:51,840 --> 00:51:58,400
i'm not used to climbing with other women uh at training sessions so it was very good to see that
402
00:52:00,400 --> 00:52:08,320
i can do things she can do or uh that she can push me i can push her it was really give and
403
00:52:08,880 --> 00:52:17,760
give and take give give and give um uh yeah and also the personality matched so it's very good
404
00:52:17,760 --> 00:52:23,200
like we became more friends than before yeah hoping to train more with her in the future
405
00:52:24,160 --> 00:52:31,200
yeah i think we can we will do it because uh so we organized this weeks in paris but we also met at
406
00:52:31,200 --> 00:52:38,400
the simulations in germany in slovenia so actually we train more than two weeks together we train
407
00:52:38,400 --> 00:52:49,600
more like three or four weeks uh this season this pre-season so yeah uh and we are we we said to
408
00:52:49,600 --> 00:52:55,280
each other that we are motivated to to keep going we will do other sessions together for sure
409
00:52:55,920 --> 00:53:01,520
and i think it's also good to have a friend with me at the oqs or at the one cups
410
00:53:01,520 --> 00:53:07,040
it's always good i think also for her because she's also always traveling with her parents
411
00:53:07,680 --> 00:53:16,000
and i think it's good to to have a friend next to it it's a shame that it took so long for that to
412
00:53:16,000 --> 00:53:22,800
finally happen but it's good that you you guys are are finally training together um what was
413
00:53:22,800 --> 00:53:27,600
you mentioned like the team boulder competition that you did um i forget what it was called but
414
00:53:27,600 --> 00:53:32,720
i forget what it was called but what was your strategy for that competition because it's not
415
00:53:32,720 --> 00:53:43,120
often that you do like a team competition so the qualification it was uh about 15 boulders uh in a
416
00:53:43,120 --> 00:53:53,440
row like it was in a rounding gym so it started from the easier one to the hardest one and we had
417
00:53:53,440 --> 00:54:03,760
i think five minutes per boulder with no rest so it was really in a row but as we are two you can
418
00:54:03,760 --> 00:54:10,160
do for example i can do the first boulders you can do the second one i can do the third etc so we just
419
00:54:10,160 --> 00:54:18,880
observed in advance okay which boulders are our style um it's so we could decide which climber
420
00:54:18,880 --> 00:54:25,920
will climb this boulder uh so we decided uh according to the style and also to the height
421
00:54:25,920 --> 00:54:33,040
because stasha it's a bit taller than me so if it was a big jump or which she move she would go
422
00:54:33,040 --> 00:54:40,160
and if it was a small box i would go because she hates that and i'm very good at small boxes so
423
00:54:40,160 --> 00:54:49,040
we mainly choose with the height and the distances but also we we were open to adapt for example
424
00:54:49,680 --> 00:54:56,880
at one moment stasha was in a slab she was supposed to climb a slab but she couldn't start finally
425
00:54:57,680 --> 00:55:06,160
so i just made one try and i could start and so i i keep continue to to climb and it works so yeah
426
00:55:06,160 --> 00:55:15,760
we had the initial plan and we also modify uh yeah depends of what happened at that moment
427
00:55:16,640 --> 00:55:23,840
and in finals it was quite the same it was also uh five minutes per boulder and
428
00:55:25,680 --> 00:55:32,400
yeah we couldn't read it in advance so we had to decide in the five minutes but as we
429
00:55:32,400 --> 00:55:38,480
already did this in the qualification we just followed the same logic with the height the
430
00:55:38,480 --> 00:55:47,200
distance and if we couldn't for example do the first move we just tried both we see which climbers
431
00:55:47,200 --> 00:55:52,560
is going the the highest yeah did you like that format would you want to do it again yeah it was
432
00:55:52,560 --> 00:55:59,360
very fun it was very good i think so i liked it because i was with stasha because i told you the
433
00:55:59,360 --> 00:56:08,480
uh we really matched and we didn't have a i don't know disagreement or something like something
434
00:56:08,480 --> 00:56:17,280
negative it was only fun and the strategy worked so we won the comp yeah we entered it congrats
435
00:56:17,280 --> 00:56:22,320
yeah i'll um link that competition as well for people to watch if they haven't seen it so
436
00:56:22,320 --> 00:56:30,320
they can keep up i think it can be frustrating to be in a duo i place for me as i i'm used to
437
00:56:30,320 --> 00:56:37,520
climb alone and it's a individual sport sometimes if the other is struggling it's super hard for me
438
00:56:37,520 --> 00:56:45,840
to watch or uh to stay calm but stasha is very good so it wasn't she was not struggling so much
439
00:56:45,840 --> 00:56:51,520
and i i was not near her so it was really comfortable it could be different if the other
440
00:56:51,520 --> 00:56:59,440
one is struggling and you have to do everything or you have to push push her but yeah it didn't go
441
00:56:59,440 --> 00:57:07,360
like this so yeah that's good i yeah i was thinking about like team sports because the thought of
442
00:57:07,360 --> 00:57:14,320
doing team sports like volleyball or soccer football or anything like that would really stress me out
443
00:57:14,320 --> 00:57:20,960
because i don't want to be like a burden to my team so i don't know how i would feel about doing
444
00:57:20,960 --> 00:57:26,480
like a team or partner competition i think that would be too stressful yeah it's really like this
445
00:57:26,480 --> 00:57:33,360
you don't want to disappoint the others and you don't want that the other is it's a weight
446
00:57:34,240 --> 00:57:40,640
yeah it's in both ways but it's uh i think you have to find a good person to be with
447
00:57:41,520 --> 00:57:48,240
and then it works but we couldn't know in advance it was quite a bet but uh yeah we were lucky it
448
00:57:48,240 --> 00:58:00,320
worked so yeah that's good to know um and then last question about um i guess being a female climber
449
00:58:00,320 --> 00:58:06,880
um i think you mentioned that at the climbing gym um even at like the commercial climbing gym i guess
450
00:58:06,880 --> 00:58:13,360
you said that you experience a lot of uh i think you said like machismo with the climbing gym
451
00:58:13,360 --> 00:58:19,280
yeah is that i'm surprised that that's still something you experience as like a professional
452
00:58:19,280 --> 00:58:26,560
climber yeah it's true um it's a shame but it still happens i think it happens to
453
00:58:27,600 --> 00:58:35,520
every world cup climbers for sure because also because the climbing is increasing a lot so
454
00:58:35,520 --> 00:58:44,880
you also find people who were beginners and from other community in the gym i think usually there
455
00:58:44,880 --> 00:58:50,080
i would call the real climbers who follow competitions they know you so they know that
456
00:58:50,080 --> 00:58:56,240
you are strong and they won't they won't underestimate you but sometimes i i meet people
457
00:58:56,240 --> 00:59:01,280
at the gym who are not following competition so they don't know me and they just see a woman
458
00:59:01,280 --> 00:59:08,240
which is climbing in a black boulder or red boulder and if they don't know the the level or the
459
00:59:08,240 --> 00:59:15,200
difficulty they just think okay it's a woman so if she can do it i will try and then they cannot start
460
00:59:16,640 --> 00:59:23,840
it's quite funny to watch but sometimes it's less funny when the people uh are coming to
461
00:59:23,840 --> 00:59:31,360
to talk to you and to i don't know they give your they give their opinions or their advice
462
00:59:32,160 --> 00:59:38,080
but you you didn't ask for anything so just let me alone like yeah it's not cool
463
00:59:38,960 --> 00:59:44,880
uh but for the rest when i see a guy which is trying the same boulder as me just because
464
00:59:46,160 --> 00:59:52,160
i am a woman i find it very funny because it's directly punished you know it just cannot start
465
00:59:52,160 --> 01:00:02,080
the boulder so it's funny but yeah it still happens um yeah i think because a lot of people
466
01:00:02,080 --> 01:00:09,840
don't know don't know climbing and start climbing uh but yeah it's also happened with with real
467
01:00:09,840 --> 01:00:17,360
climbers but i think it happens less yeah i guess i'm kind of surprised that you have that experience
468
01:00:17,360 --> 01:00:24,320
because i don't think i see that too often but i guess maybe maybe i just don't try stuff that's
469
01:00:24,320 --> 01:00:31,200
hard enough so i don't see maybe it's question of culture i don't know how it is in the us but
470
01:00:32,080 --> 01:00:39,920
i think in europe the men's are still uh considered like uh better than women's
471
01:00:39,920 --> 01:00:46,240
it shouldn't be like this but i think it's still in the culture for for uh it's changing it's
472
01:00:46,240 --> 01:00:55,520
evolving a lot but it's also still in the culture also in the the the work uh work world
473
01:00:56,640 --> 01:01:05,360
uh men's are better paid than women i think on a lot of examples it's still uh
474
01:01:05,360 --> 01:01:11,120
it's still uh still like this i don't know in the us maybe it's about the culture but
475
01:01:12,160 --> 01:01:18,400
it happens uh here no i mean i think in general it would still be like that i just i don't see it as
476
01:01:18,400 --> 01:01:25,200
much in a climbing gym because i think in climbing gyms people are usually a little bit more um i
477
01:01:25,200 --> 01:01:32,720
guess like accepting there's not as much like toxic masculinity i guess but it depends on the gym as
478
01:01:32,720 --> 01:01:42,000
well i think yeah it depends of everything about the city where you are and yeah for the
479
01:01:43,520 --> 01:01:53,680
for me it happens because also i climb in very hard waters but i also see for uh weaker women
480
01:01:54,400 --> 01:02:01,200
that it happens but in a different way for example like the man will feel obliged to give a
481
01:02:01,200 --> 01:02:11,360
uh an advice you know or but he will give advices to women but not to men and it can be really kind
482
01:02:11,360 --> 01:02:19,920
like it looks kind and sometimes it's nice but if it's only for women it's it's kind of much yeah
483
01:02:19,920 --> 01:02:25,280
yeah i i mean i guess yeah people always talk about beta spraying and it's really annoying but
484
01:02:25,280 --> 01:02:32,080
um i think for me i will always take beta because i just want to know how to do it
485
01:02:33,760 --> 01:02:39,680
but imagine in the opposite way if you want to climb outside on sides and you don't want to have
486
01:02:39,680 --> 01:02:46,480
information and you are climbing you are on the wall and then one guy is he's screaming yeah put
487
01:02:46,480 --> 01:02:52,160
the right hand like this and then this and you're like come on i just want to climb by myself and
488
01:02:52,160 --> 01:02:59,680
and don't don't tell anything yeah i didn't ask anything yeah that makes sense well hopefully
489
01:02:59,680 --> 01:03:07,840
people will hear this and they'll know yeah i hope so okay um i know you have a cut off soon so we'll
490
01:03:07,840 --> 01:03:14,720
just move on for now um future goals for the upcoming season do you have any like concrete
491
01:03:14,720 --> 01:03:20,320
goals that you want to hit yeah to go to the olympics for sure yeah you're participating in
492
01:03:20,320 --> 01:03:30,400
oqs so good luck to you on that um thank you yeah i hope it goes well and yeah any other goals or
493
01:03:30,400 --> 01:03:37,360
just just the olympics for this year i mainly focus on this because it's a already very big
494
01:03:37,360 --> 01:03:45,360
project so i cannot think about something else for the moment but yeah for sure after i have other
495
01:03:45,360 --> 01:03:50,960
projects but for this year it's it's mainly olympics okay i mean i guess you have to like
496
01:03:50,960 --> 01:03:57,200
train in order to peak for a certain competition so is like this first world cup kind of just like
497
01:03:57,200 --> 01:04:04,320
practice for you or are you also trying to like peak here as well yeah the the goal for the first
498
01:04:04,320 --> 01:04:13,520
china world cups is um is to practice before the oqs but i'm i'm still a competitor so for sure
499
01:04:13,520 --> 01:04:20,480
i want to be on the podium i want to win so i will give my best but yeah for example if i do
500
01:04:21,920 --> 01:04:29,040
if i don't complete these goals it's okay i just have to learn uh what happened and yeah to to take
501
01:04:29,040 --> 01:04:36,080
the advantage of these comps before the oqs definitely okay well good luck there um real
502
01:04:36,080 --> 01:04:42,480
quick let's move into a few discord questions from the community um first one are there any
503
01:04:42,480 --> 01:04:48,720
struggles on the national team with different languages being spoken no it's okay we speak in
504
01:04:48,720 --> 01:05:00,320
english oh really yeah okay i mean it's funny because we we mix a bit of everything yeah so
505
01:05:02,640 --> 01:05:08,000
we mainly speak english then i would say french and then just a bit of flamish
506
01:05:08,000 --> 01:05:14,800
but yeah everyone is speaking french quite good even the flamish climbers for example
507
01:05:14,800 --> 01:05:23,920
hannes van der isen is from the north part and it's speaking flamish but he learned french
508
01:05:23,920 --> 01:05:31,840
uh being in the team actually so yeah now we speak french with him and if he cannot speak
509
01:05:31,840 --> 01:05:38,400
he cannot speak or he cannot find his words or he doesn't understand us we speak in english
510
01:05:39,040 --> 01:05:45,760
and all the briefing from the coach are are in english oh okay yeah i guess i'm surprised i
511
01:05:45,760 --> 01:05:50,800
thought more people spoke french in belgium than english so that's interesting to know
512
01:05:51,840 --> 01:05:59,040
we have three languages so it's french uh dutch and german dutch is uh flamish
513
01:05:59,040 --> 01:06:09,360
uh it's the same language but yeah because if we would speak in the three languages the coach would
514
01:06:09,360 --> 01:06:16,960
would do the briefing in three languages it would take too much time or so we just do it in english
515
01:06:16,960 --> 01:06:24,880
and and so everyone can understand makes sense um next question what do you do in isolation to kill
516
01:06:24,880 --> 01:06:34,720
the time usually i'm i climb i i mean i climb quite early because it's the order of climbing
517
01:06:34,720 --> 01:06:42,000
is the ranking so if i'm i am well ranked i will enter the iso and i will warm up directly so it's
518
01:06:42,000 --> 01:06:49,520
my warm up routine uh just i think last year i was waiting more because my previous year was
519
01:06:49,520 --> 01:07:00,400
bad in terms of results so yeah it depends i like to talk to the to other climbers the coaches
520
01:07:02,240 --> 01:07:10,960
i like listening to music um maybe this year i will read because i started to read the more
521
01:07:10,960 --> 01:07:18,400
than the previous year again because when i was younger i really liked reading but then i i said
522
01:07:18,400 --> 01:07:25,680
but then i i stopped a bit so now maybe i can take a book in the iso but yeah in general i just
523
01:07:25,680 --> 01:07:33,280
warm up directly so i don't have a lot of things to do except to focus on my warm up and i guess
524
01:07:33,280 --> 01:07:38,960
speaking of music um people are also curious about what kind of music or bands you listen to
525
01:07:39,760 --> 01:07:47,040
um i have a mix of everything i would say because um i'm really sensitive to music
526
01:07:47,040 --> 01:07:56,160
uh according to my mood or the mood i want to have so it can be really hard to know if i want to
527
01:07:57,520 --> 01:08:05,520
to be nervously ready in the hardboiler for example but sometimes if if i know that it's a slab
528
01:08:05,520 --> 01:08:14,560
and i need to be really relaxed or calm i will listen to calmer musics i also like some raps
529
01:08:14,560 --> 01:08:22,800
raps sometimes because it can be aggressive in the in the lyrics and sometimes i need to
530
01:08:22,800 --> 01:08:29,440
to be in this mood for competing so yeah it's a mix of everything and i use it like a tool
531
01:08:30,240 --> 01:08:36,800
to have the mood that i really need for the next boulder if i know which side is it any specific
532
01:08:36,800 --> 01:08:44,080
songs that come to mind right now that you want to share i really like listening to techno when i am
533
01:08:44,080 --> 01:08:54,480
competing so for example charlotte the wheat uh it's a belgian dj okay i'll try to mix in
534
01:08:54,480 --> 01:09:04,800
uh dance with me you have to tap to tap it okay mandragora from codeine okay these will be hard
535
01:09:04,800 --> 01:09:12,400
for me to look up but i'll try to find them it's nice techno to climb uh and yeah for the rap uh
536
01:09:12,400 --> 01:09:20,080
it's a mix of american rap or french rap because the french are also very good in rap yeah but yeah
537
01:09:20,080 --> 01:09:27,600
aiming them it's a good a good classic all right sounds good well yeah i think we we gotta end soon
538
01:09:27,600 --> 01:09:33,280
so i'll end it there that's all the questions i had and thank you for joining me today is there
539
01:09:33,280 --> 01:09:38,800
anything you want to shout out or let people know where they can find you no you you can find me on
540
01:09:38,800 --> 01:09:45,440
instagram and on the world cup streaming but uh yeah thank you for inviting me it was a fun time
541
01:09:45,440 --> 01:09:52,000
yeah discussing about all of this yeah i'll link your info in the description and then yeah it was
542
01:09:52,000 --> 01:09:57,520
great to talk to you thank you thank you so much for making it to the end of the podcast don't
543
01:09:57,520 --> 01:10:03,440
forget to like and subscribe if you enjoyed otherwise you are a super fake climber if you're
544
01:10:03,440 --> 01:10:08,880
listening on a podcasting platform i'd appreciate if you rate it five stars and you can continue the
545
01:10:08,880 --> 01:10:33,760
discussion on the free competition climbing discord linked in the description thanks again for listening
