Sébastien Lazure reflects on his experience at Worlds
Sébastien Lazure is a dedicated athlete. He has been competing on the Canadian comp circuit for 15 years. With too many podiums to count, he is one of Canada’s competition climbing elite.
Lazure also has an impressive tick-list outdoors, with numerous hard sends up to and including 5.14b and V13/14. His Sendage stats reveal a remarkable 173 boulders in the double digits, 37 of which are V12 and harder.
In the past five years, Lazure has competed at seven bouldering world cup events, with his personal best finish of 13th (Vail 2017). This year he was one of the athletes who earned a spot on the Canadian team competing at the World Championships in Innsbruck.
Lazure is quiet and unassuming at first glance, but anyone who’s watched him climb knows that the man is a beast of a rock climber. He has the combined skills of strength and flexibility, as well as a seemingly endless amount of ‘try hard’.
Lazure placed 65th (out of 150) in the bouldering World Championships. When asked what he will take away from the experience, he replied, “A lot of motivation, and things to work on!”
With psych and determination like his, we have lots more to see from the 28 year-old climber. We chatted with Lazure about his experience at Worlds.
Congrats on representing Canada at the World Championships Seb. Tell us about your climbing experience! What were the boulders like for your group in qualifiers? Thank you! I always feel lucky to be able to compete at this level. Climbing against a field packed with the best competition climbers in the world is for sure pushing me to give it all on the wall.
The circuit we had to climb for qualifier was definitely hard but we were not expecting anything else! It’s World Championship and we had seen the girls qualifiers the day before and theirs was pretty stout.
The boulders at this level are always trickier than they look. They are made especially so we fall. The route-setters can’t only put up crimp ladders or straightforward climbs since everyone would cruise them and there wouldn’t be enough separation between climbers. They create moves that makes the climbers take risks, doubt or get in uncomfortable positions.
Which one did you feel the best/worst on? My favourite boulder was the coordination jump of problem three. I had to kick my right foot to a volume to create momentum for the jump. In the movement I had to grab a pinch to redirect the momentum, cross over with my left hand and stop my swing grabbing a right gaston pinch.
These dynos aren’t usually one of my strengths so I was happy to get the move on my second try. I unfortunately fell grabbing the last hold of the boulder.
You didn’t compete in lead or speed events, so can we presume you don’t have sights on the Olympics? I did a lot of bouldering world cups this season and the timing for lead nationals was just not very good for me so I chose not to compete and concentrate on bouldering.
I had to qualify at nationals in order to compete in lead or speed in Innsbruck. I do like to do lead and I am tempted [to try] every discipline next season. It could bring some new challenges for me.
What did you enjoy most about your time in Innsbruck? For the first time the CEC was able to totally fund the trip of the team that they sent to the World Championships.
So for the first time we are really travelling as one team, staying all together at the same place and having a coach and a therapist with us. We also had a brand new complete uniform by MEC. It feels a lot more professional and it is fun sharing this experience with everyone.
Overall as an event itself these championships have been one of the best! The atmosphere was great and the organisation was on point. It has been super inspiring to watch everyone push their limits in every discipline and cheer on each other. Innsbruck is also a super nice town and has a big climbing history.
What have you taken away from this experience? A lot of motivation and things to work on. I will also have plenty of memories to bring back home.
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