6 November 2008

Evgeny Kryvosheytsev

Evgeny Kryvosheytsev - The Eastern block hero!

-Talk to that guy, he is an eastern block hero, says the boss and runs away to have a chat with someone else. Jens had met Evegeny in Ukraine long before and he knew a few of his stories. We recognized his face but that's about it. As we hadn't heard much about him, other than what he'd one in terms of results in and out, I was a little bit confused, I mean all celebrities was here and what could I possible ask a guy I knew nothing about? Half an hour later me and Bjorn looked at each other, -Wow, that was the best interview ever, HE IS A REAL HERO!

Evgeny's career began in 1985 when he saw climbing and skydiving on TV. He was impressed and wanted to try. What do you do? Well, if you're Evgeny you check out the local yellow paper. At this time there was one skydiving club and one climbing club in his town. Fortunately for us,  the skydiving club was closed for the season, so there was not much of a choice. 

After a month of traditional climbing Evgeny won his first competition. Not long after he got his international master, which is a "certificate" that is needed to be allowed to represent his country.

1988-1990 he spent two years in the army (not his favorite two years in life to put it mildly) and couldn't climb at all but this didn't stop him. Two years after that he was in the national-team and in 1993 he was #1 in the Speed World Cup. This is just the start, I think you can figure that this is a true natural talent and the story is just getting better. 

The picture is from one og Evngenys "homecrags", Crimea, area name Nikita. The name of the route is Skif+Mrak, 8c+. As evgeny puts it, a hard route with a bouldercrux in the start, pupmy in the middle and really tecnical on the end... The phote under is from the same route but on the top-part.

 

1995 he became a vegetarian to lose weight and to get even better, actually he didn't eat anything but fruits and vegetables. He lost a few kilos and continued entering the finals in difficulty and winning speed competitions and in 1998 he was #3 in the world cup after Hirayama and Brenna. 

More impressive is the absolute epics Evgeny and his friends had to go through just to get to the competitions. At this time, and still, it's kinda hard to get a visa in Ukraine, political issues held eastern Europe away from west, you know the story! As Evegeny was a student at this time he couldn't afford expensive plane tickets. So again, what do you do? Well, if you're Evgeny, you pack the car full of friends and drive. Sometimes they sat at the embassy until the last night before the competition to get their visas and then they drove the whole night to get there. Sometimes they didn't even get enough visas and had to sneak over the borders walking to get to the competitions. A few times they were arrested but that didn't stop him from keeping on doing great results! "entering Europe was a new level of life" and Evgeny kept on entering the finals more frequently.

It's Friday evening the night before the competition in Leipzig in 1999. Evgeny and a few of his friends are, as usual, sitting at the embassy and waiting for their visas. Some of them gets a visa and some don't, but they all jump in the car and start driving towards the competition. A few kilometers from the border those without visas gets out of the car and starts to walk over the border. A few kilometers across the border they get picked up again and the journey continues.

They got a few hours of bad sleep in the car before entering the isolation zone. In the qualification Evgeny feels terrible but still makes it to the next round. In the semifinal, after some food, he feels better and makes it to the final. After a few hours sleep and some more food he feels at his best and climbs the final and he finish second just after Francois Legrand which is a nice coincidence as Evgeny had many good words about Legrand. "He helped me a lot with my climbing and gave me many good tips." After that competition Evgeny was ranked second in the IFSC world ranking!

The Picture is from Ouray Ice Climbing Festival (Colorado ) 2007. "Ouray one of the best Ice climbing festival in the world." it was really could tough, about -15 degrees. Evgeny won this event as so many others!

In 2001 he was bored and started ice-climbing. After a few months he went on his first world cup and was 4th! The next competition he won and since then he has been the undisputed champion. Four times he has won the world championship in ice climbing, and he has won the world cup in speed and ice climbing several times as well!

It has been a long career and still its not over. Every season he tries his form and if he can do a 8c or 8c+ route it's OK. When it comes to ice climbing he is going to stop, the day he is not Top-3 in a competition, my belief and my hope is that it will take a few years still ;)

He doesn't hold on to his secrets and recommends everyone to climb with music, do yoga, good warm up and stretching, "especially when you get older ;)" "sometimes I cant even do the moves on a route, then I put music on and I do the whole route right away"

This might have been the most inspiring climber I have ever met. A supernatural, a undisputed champion, a nice personality with a great story, simply a real hero!

Picture aslo from Ouray. Final on a mix route wich according to Evgeny was really hard and pumpy, about m10+.

 

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