López and Potočar about training and winning

Alberto Gines López won the Olympic Games and Luka Potocar the World Cup 2022. In the Red Bull Duel Ascent they are team mates for the first time. 8a got the possibility to have a chat and here are some of their interesting thoughts.

Driving force?
Luka: The feeling on the wall in front of the crowd. A great mix of feeling nervous and pure excitement. You know you have support from your family, friends, and spectators.

What about winning as the drive?
Luka: The result does not matter during that feeling. You never know when you will win. It is about focusing on the climbing and winning can come to you. In the interviews afterward. It is hard to answer: “You looked so strong?” Sometimes you perform and I know crimps and less dynamic suites me but it is also about minimizing being unlucky.

Suffering?
Very seldom I actually do not want to train. Having a bad session is anyhow about giving all I have although falling already on the tenth move. Afterward, being tired my feeling is always good and I get motivated by this.

Training?
90 % is done doing circles on a steep spraywall. My coach points out 3-4 boulder routes which I try to repeat a couple of times. Most of the time I train with Vita Lukan but there are many different climbers who join. We do five, four hours sessions a week. It is nice to go to Innsbruck climbing onsight but after two days I have done all the routes and we are back on the spray wall again. I almost never do any supplementary training. It is about fighting and doing circles on the spray wall.

Alberto joins:
You do not need a plan. It is just about climbing hard. I get upset when climbers tell me that I am not serious and that I should do this or that. I am not a coach but my personal opinion is that when you climb 8a, 8b, or even 8c you do not need a training plan. Doing hangboard session if you climb 7a is wrong. I do some injury prevention exercises in the gym and a lot of stretching but no real supplementary training. Training is easy when you are motivated and for me, it is better with friends. I always arrive home with a good feeling.

New Olympic format?
Alberto: I think the new one is better but I do not care. I just climb and I want to win more comps.
Luka: I would have preferred to have three medals. Possibly IFSC should have pushed this more.

It seems you have a different approach: Feeling (Luka) contra Winning (Alberto).
Alberto: Luka wants to win also… and they start to discuss the subject and I read Lukas comments about feelings.
Alberto: Interesting. It is good. I like it.