How to rock climbing

We are excited to announce the newest member of the prAna family, Sasha DiGiulian!

Sasha brings her considerable talent to a world class team that already includes Chris Sharma, Steph Davis, Dean Potter, Alex Puccio and Paul Robinson among others. She will have a wealth of experience to draw from while she blazes her own path in climbing and in life. Sasha recently returned triumphant from the Pan-American Championships in Quito, Ecuador where she placed 1st in Sport-Climbing and 2nd in Bouldering. Her overall performance was impressive enough to win the women’s overall crown (sport, bouldering and speed composite)! Here is what she had to say about her latest accomplishment…

(Recently) the first ever pan-American Championships took place in Quito, Ecuador. Climbers from North America and South America vied for the Continental title in sport climbing, speed, and bouldering.

Magnus (my boyfriend/coach) and I arrived in Ecuador a few days prior to the competition in order to acclimate (at least a little). We ran and did circuits at the local climbing gym for 2 days before taking 2 days rest before the competition. Unfortunately, within the days before the comp started I caught some bad food or water sickness despite being overly cautious about the Ecuadorian water, so that was a bit of a set back, but with the help of antibiotics from my doctor, I was psyched to compete!

The games kicked off with sport climbing. Thursday morning, May 20, were qualifiers and in the afternoon semifinals. Qualifiers consisted of one route, flash-format, and me along with 2 other women flashed the route. Later on in the day were semifinals, which was onsight format. I was the only one of the women to send the route, which placed me in top spot going into finals. The next day lead finals took place in the morning. The top 8 women and men advanced from semifinals and each category (men and women) had 1 route to onsight within a 7-minute time frame. I was the only woman to send the route, which ensured my victory.

The routes were well set with the incorporation of cool features and pretty much all so-ill holds. I was psyched to see that the route setters had been working hard towards putting on a good competition and the wall was pretty fit for the setters to be creative with. The blue outside wall was about Ǵ-23 meters with varying angles, primarily pretty overhung, so the routes were in general quite endurance-oriented. I also got pretty out of breath due to Quito’s high elevation (roughly 9,000 or 10,000 feet) because despite being there a few days prior to the competition, I live at sea level and am not used to being so high up!

Following lead finals was the speed competition in which I participated in for probably my second time ever doing speed, just for the points to qualify for the overall standing award. I don’t ever train speed and personally don’t have any interest in it, but I was especially impressed by how fast the Venezuelan team was! I placed dead last in speed but that was no surprise – I just climbed up the jug-hall vertical wall as a sort of cool down in preparation for the bouldering round that was to commence the next morning.

The bouldering competition was well run and went very quickly and efficiently. In qualifiers each category (men and women) had 5 different boulders with 5 minutes for each one, then the top 6 of this round advanced to finals the next morning. Finals consisted of 4 boulders, 5 minutes each. Fellow American Francesca Metcalf climbed very well in bouldering and took first place! I followed in second.

At the end of the championship, a nice award ceremony closed the events. I was awarded 2 golds (sport-climbing and combined) and 1 silver (bouldering). Also – team USA with only Francesca and me took bronze for the women’s team award, which was kind of surprising! I wish that more Americans could have come and competed in the Championships as well, and hopefully next time there will be better notice beforehand about the date and location.

Overall, the pan-American Championships were successfully run and a great experience. I enjoy traveling and experiencing new cultures, and along with the competition, we had time to tour around a little and experience Ecuador. Besides my mom’s camera being stolen mid-trip, my visit to Ecuador was great!

We look forward to great things from Sasha and you can find out more about her HERE.