16 May 2018

A dream came true for Alex Khazanov

Looking at Alex Khazanov's long IFSC result board is amazing and very inspiring, for everyone normally fighting way down in the result list. After four years with great progress as a junior, he was one of the best in bouldering in 2014. At the same time he started off by being #67 and #75 in the World Cup. Again with fast progress his best result was #18, coming into the 2018 season which begun with being #57. In the next one in Moscow he was #7 and decided to use all his savings to go to China. Alex works as a coach and route setter, living a low budget life sleeping at his parents house, and unfortunately the Israel federation can not yet support him with the starting fee for the comps. "Right now I cannot afford a rock trip if I want to do all the comps, and I am trying to get the Olympic department to give me some money for lead comps as preparation for Innsbruck." As a preparation for the 2018 season he trained six times a week twice a day for six months. "I like to train alone, that way you can have all the time you want to work on detail, other than rushing between boulders and trying to show who is better." So how can you explain this amazing - A dream come true story? It was so unexpected and I am so happy!! The season is still only half way so we will see what happens. I hope I can make semi next time, haha its always hard in Bouldering. I guess what helped me the most is two factors. One, is physical, I have trained a lot and slightly different than others. But I guess it's my small secret the other one is mental. I climbed extremely free and with no expectations. I was just happy to be in semi finals, and than I was just happy to be in finals. I am not afraid from bad results. Can you say something about that secret training? I have a non climbing coach at home. In order to do a slab you sometimes have to do a one leg squat. It's hard to get this power from climbing. So I went to the gym. imagine you on two volumes on the same height, and you need to transfer balance between the two. It will be much easier if you have strong lower back and stabilizer muscles . So you control your body. In the gym I do not use machines. More with a physio ball, weights, rubber bands and rings. And what about all the jumping around on big volumes? I just try to make some crazy moves. But all and all I guess if you climb a lot on different types of climbing, rock and plastic you get a better feeling in all styles. As for Slabs, the gym is key. I plan to spend one month in Innsbruck before the World Championship focusing on jumping around. Interesting is also that Alex has teamed up with Alex Rubtsov and the Slovenians both outdoors and in competitions and they are all Top-7 in the World Cup ranking together with three Japanese.
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