Climbing Up to You - Minsung

Chapter 19

"Welcome to the qualifications for the lead final championships! This is our last contest before our athletes head over to Paris to compete in the Olympics. Most of the climbers here today have already qualified for the Olympics. But we have a couple more today hoping to get their ticket to the games." Justin announced as they watched the lead climbers head out onto the mats to take a look at the climb before heading into isolation.

"It is! I think this is definitely going to be an interesting round, we have some of the best lead climbers here today. We have of course Lee Minho from Korea who is currently checking out the start of the route with his new teammate, Han Jisung. Now we spoke to See-Yung, their coach before we started today. He mentioned that Korea are lucky to have Jisung join their team, all thanks to his dual citizenship. I don't think we've seen this before." Ashley explained as the camera panned around the climbers looking through binoculars.

"For sure, I think it must be really strange for him to come here and compete for a completely different team. Jisung had been climbing for Great Britain since the youth competitions when he was probably around nine years old. It will be interesting to see if he's improved since his move." Justin added on.

"We also have Felix from Australia; he's chatting with the Korean team about the beta. Our coach mentioned that Felix had been working hard to improve his lead climbing ahead of the games." Ashley grinned as she mentioned her teammate who was intensely looking at the route.

"Ah yes, that's right. You are a pretty strong lead climber as well; did you end up training together?" Justin asked as the timer for the beta reading session was coming to an end.

"Yeah, we were training a lot together. It's going to be interesting to see if he gets to the final for this comp." Ashley nodded along.

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"That section on the left is very confusing, it looks more dyno. But I don't think it's a safe option to jump for it." Jisung mentioned as they reached the middle of the climb.

"Definitely need to stretch for it. It looks like a crimp hold." Minho said as he looked through his binoculars, "I think it's hard to figure out the distance from the holds until we are up there."

"Even the holds before are tiny, it's going to be hard to traverse over to it in the first place," Felix added as he pointed out the small holds before the stretch.

The timer beeps before Jisung could comment again and they were all ushered off the stage quickly, back into isolation.

Jisung made a quick detour over to his bag as he grabbed his headphones and music player ready to block out all the small chatting and tension that was already beginning to build. His seat was next to Minho and a Chinese climber whom he hadn't seen at competitions before.

He was in the middle of the queue to go out which he appreciated for once. Leaning back on his chair he noticed Minho grabbing his climbing shoes out of his bag and checking his soft shoes and then his hard shoes, clearly trying to decide which would be better for him to climb in.

Taking a shaky breath Jisung began to tap his fingers on his knee to try and distract his thoughts and focus purely on the climb he was about to do.

He had to climb well. Had to do well for Korea, and not ruin his new team's reputation. Prove that he deserved to qualify for the Olympics. To prove to Minho that he was a good climber. Prove to Minho that he can represent Korea.

A quick tap on his shoulder and Jisung glanced over to Minho. His mouth moved but with his headphones in he couldn't hear what the boy was saying. Frowning slightly, he pulled out a headphone as Minho repeated what he said.