Why I Withdrew from the First World Cup of the Season

At the end of March, I was in Quebec City for something a little different—RBC Training Ground. It’s a nationwide talent identification program that pairs young athletes with Olympic sports and helps fund their development. The tests are designed to assess raw athleticism—power, speed, endurance—and I thought it would be a fun and worthwhile experience, especially if I could secure the funding.

Everything was going well...until the 30-meter sprints.

Mid-run on my third attempt, I felt a sharp tug in my right hamstring. I figured it was just a cramp or a minor pull. But as the day wore on—and especially during the long drive home—it became clear something wasn’t right.

I decided to take four full days off to let it settle. I was convinced it would be a quick fix.

But it wasn’t.

When I returned to climbing, I decided to train footless only. This meant Zach had to come to the gym with me every day and coach me through campus sessions on the spray wall, like we did in the off-season. Meanwhile, I went into full recovery mode. With less than a month before the first World Cup of the season, I tried every trick in the book - heat, red light therapy, EMS, collagen, turmeric, physio - in hopes I could speed this whole thing along. Every few days, I’d try to climb on the wall, and every time, I couldn’t pull at all with my right leg.

Mentally, those first two weeks were hard. I was still hopeful, but that hope faded with each setback. It felt like pushing too hard—even just once—could set things back enough that it wouldn't be ready in time. We were already working with the bare minimum amount of time it takes to heal a hamstring strain. Every misstep made me think: There goes China.

Recovery time aside, the kind of training I was doing wasn’t ideal for a World Cup. Campusing every day isn’t how you want to prep for a comp, especially not in-season. While I was grateful I could still train at my limit without using my hamstring, it quickly became obvious that doing just this one style would come at a cost. I was losing sharpness in others.

When I saw little to no improvement in my hamstring on the wall after two weeks, I decided to get a professional opinion. I saw two physiotherapists, hoping for a miracle. Based on what I described on the wall and what they saw in person, they both suggested the same thing: China was not going to happen.

To be clear, I could have competed. There were still two weeks to go, and the recovery timeline for a Grade 1 strain is just a touch longer than that. But the risk of reinjury, or even a tear, was over 50%.

Hearing that, I was convinced. On top of that, I was starting to have doubts about the interim training I was doing and how well I was going to be prepared for China. At the end of the day, it was the right decision. The cautious decision. The crappy decision.

It’s tough when you train all year for these few events, and losing just one of them feels terrible.

But climbing is one of the few Olympic sports with a lot of World Cups. Including the World Championships, we have seven events this season. China was just the first, and honestly, if I had to miss one, it’s best that it’s this one. There’s a full month between China and Brazil, and after that, the World Cups are back-to-back. I’ve got time to put this hamstring strain behind me and get back to real training—not just for Brazil, but for the whole season, and especially for Worlds in September.

It’s now been about two weeks since I pulled out of China, and that comp kicks off in just two days. My hamstring is feeling much better. After some promising tests on the wall, I sprinkled in some full-fledged climbing sessions between all the footless work, and I'm seeing rapid progress. I'm using the hamstring at about 60% intensity, which is a huge improvement over the 0% we were working with just a few weeks ago.

And knowing how it feels now, right as the World Cup begins, I know I made the right call. It’s usable, but unstable. I’m still guarding it. And that’s no way to perform at your limit. China is a long way to go when you don’t trust your body.

I’m incredibly lucky this was only a Grade 1 strain. I could have easily lost the entire season with anything worse. I'm also lucky the IFSC schedule put China way before the rest of the boulder world cups. That gave me the time I needed to regroup and take back the season.

Next week, I'll reach the 4-week mark post injury, a time when my physio said the muscle is almost entirely healed, albeit still fragile. I’ll be back in full training mode, which at minimum means no more campusing.

It took longer than I expected to get here, but here we are. Now it's time to get back on track and get to Brazil in one piece.

Time to resume bubble wrap season.