Liverpool Open Competition 2010

BMC Youth Open Competition - Liverpool Awesome Walls, 27th November 2010




With 114 competitors turning out on a chilly Saturday morning this year’s winter YOC was marginally quieter than last year, but the competition was just as hotly contested. There were only 16 Scots taking part as some of our more experienced climbers were out with injury after an extremely long competitive season. Nevertheless we managed to get 13 climbers into the Finals and bring home two First and two Second places.



As well as an Open competition the event was being used to help GB team management select their squad for 2011. Everyone was competing in their IFSC categories for 2011, so there were some new faces and often a new group of climbers to pitch skills against. Zippy, Tom Randall and Neil Busby had set some exciting routes and they were testing from the start. Even so over a third of competitors (39) managed tops on their easiest qualifier in the 8 groups. This dropped to 12 on the harder qualifier and over the course of the day only 9 competitors went through to the finals with 2 tops.



Youth C (12/13yrs) saw many climbers competing for the first time at this level and while nerves were apparent on qualifying routes, scores were relatively close going into the Finals route for both the boys and girls. A tricky triangular volume proved too much for most girls but Inverness’ Emily Eadie made that all important ‘positive climbing move’ from the volume to gain a + and take 2nd behind Carmel Moran. Gabriella Stewart (Loanhead) was pleased with her 6th placing in her first YOC.



In the boys Angus Davidson (Edinburgh) had an excellent climb on a complex Finals Yellow route that had been used previously by Youth B boys. His final score of 29+ beat most of the older boys and gave him the Youth C title 6pts clear of his nearest rivals. Fort William’s Stephen Dent finished in 7th place in his first YOC.



The largest turnout was in the Youth B (14/15yrs) category which had 42 climbers. This was 10 more than last year demonstrating the level of interest amongst this age group (the youngest category that competes as the GB team on the International circuit). From Scotland there were 5 girls and 2 boys.



While there were many gutsy performances throughout the day, with heart stopping foot slips recovered, determined campus grips held for an inordinate length of time while feet sought a hold and brave lunges for that extra + point, the climb of the day went to London’s Molly Thompson-Smith who, despite having just moved up to Youth B, had an outstanding Final route on a tricky Green to the left of the Barrel Wall. This 7c climb had previously been the 2nd qualifier for the Youth A girls and Elite GB team member Kitty Wallace had achieved a near top 35- score. Molly had the crowd cheering loudly as she achieved 34+ a mere touch away from Kitty’s position and an example to all climbers who claim they aren’t tall enough to make moves. Molly is at least a foot shorter than Kitty. Edinburgh’s Rachel Carr took 2nd with Nikki Addison (Inverness) 4th, Rebekah Drummond (Brechin) 7th, Megan Saunders (Broxburn) 11th and Alexandra Blunt (Edinburgh) 15th.



There were 2 Scots among the 23 competing in Youth B boys and scores were close going into the final route. Dylan Mackenzie (Inverness) clinched first place thanks to his 2 Qualifying route top outs and Alexander Bosi (Edinburgh) finished 16th. It was Dylan’s second win that day as he had already won the Scottish Tooling Series Youth title despite missing the final round in EICA: Ratho that coincided with this competition.



The Youth A boys were also out in force with 20 competitors and with most of the current GB Youth A boys moving up to Junior next year this was perhaps the most unpredictable group. The climbers were warned that they were tacking their hardest route first so that they didn’t get too discouraged. Steven Addison (Inverness) finished in 5th behind winner Sam Brannigan (Newcastle) with Glencoe’s Alasdair Johnstone taking 10th place.



Scotland had no competitors in the girls’ Youth A (16/17) or Junior (18/19yrs) categories which were won by Kitty Wallace and Catherine Whiteman respectively.



The girls’ Junior group had only 3 competitors. By contrast the Male Junior group was 17 strong and sported 3 Scots. Scores were close going into the Final, once again on the Green Barrel route, now altered from a 7c to an 8a. Luke Tilley took the title with Paul Williamson (Glasgow) 4th, Ross Kirkland (Edinburgh) 7th and Calum Forsyth (Ratho) 9th.



The day ran smoothly thanks to Rob Adie and his team of volunteers and it was good to see some of the more experienced climbers, who were out with injury, sharing advice and words of encouragement to those new to the scene. Although some climbers were disappointed with their climbs on the day, many more were pleased with their achievements and the valuable experience they had gained. The next Youth Open Competition is on 30th July in EICA: Ratho. It would be great to see a few more Scots taking part.



Avril Gall

Some Vids of EYS Imst

Heres a few clips and pics of some of the young blades in action on the wall at the EYS Imst Austria.

Stevie On 2nd qualifier

Dylan On 2nd qualifier

Dylan on !st qualifier

johny on 2nd qualifier

IMST Colors Report - Angus Davidson

Angus was recently selected or the 2010 IMST Colors Youth Open Competition. He was joined by fllow Scots - Gabbie Stewart, William Bosi & Niki Addison. Below is a report rom Angus on his ffirst experience of international competition;

Imst was great. It was a great experience right from the start. Exiting all the way through.

It was amazing exploring Imst. Visiting the centre, going to the restaurants and doing lots of walks, but my favourite thing was the Alpine Coaster. Going up in the chair lifts and going down really fast in your own personal vehicle. The scary thing was the speed, you’re in-charge of the brakes and how fast you go and I recommend it to anybody.

You would expect to have a good nights sleep but no, Church bells ring at 6:00am which woke me up early. You had to be up at 7:00 to get your breakfast and get to the wall for 8:15.Tough times. The wall was fantastic, very steep, but flat at some points and all the climbs were set already. You had to switch from different types of climbing as some were powerful, some sustained and some were just ridiculously hard. Demos were there to save us from the nerves of "how are you supposed to do that?". They made it look easy =-(.The routes had a range from 6b+ - 7b+/7c.It was very efficient up to 10 climbers climbing at once. I topped 5 out of my 6 routes and I ended up in 9th position by the end of the day.

It gave me a lot more confidence for the 2nd day which was tough because the routes were a lot harder. The easiest grade was 7a+/7b and the hardest was 7c.It was a challenging day! The good thing was there was a pizza place upstairs. They did great pizzas and it had a great view of the mountains stretching up into the clouds. A great place to go. For most of the day you had to stay focused. I was in the zone and I topped 2-3 of my routes. I was climbing the best that I could. Overall I came 9th in Europe. I am very pleased of what I have done. Finally the nerves where over and I could relax. Later on that day we went to this tiny cafe just outside Austria. My dad told me how to order a coca-cola in German, but when the order came it was a rhubarb crumble. Thanks Dad.

The experience was ended as I arrived back home, and got into my nice warm bed.

Font Trip - Gabbie Stewart

I am so lucky. Neil Gresham asked me to join him and his group for a whole week of coaching in Fontainebleau in France. I went with my mum & dad and we flew to Paris and then drove down to the gite we would be staying in with Neil and the others. We arrived on Saturday night after getting stuck in traffic around Paris, I was also very nervous because the rest of the group were all adults and I only knew Neil. Neil had two other coaches with him, Steve and Shaun. That night Neil introduced us to the group and explained a bit about what we would doing over the next week. Everyone was very excited – especially the adults who couldn’t get to sleep that first night.

On Sunday when we woke up it was raining but that didn’t stop us and we went off to Couvier to tackle our first boulders. I had never seen anything like the huge boulders we found, they were huge... and wet and slippery but we still managed about three hours climbing and it was fantastic, I didn’t know which boulder to try first. We got back to the gite and after we had our evening meal Neil, Steve and Shaun showed us the video of our climbing that day and pointed out our faults. It was a bit embarrassing but everyone learnt something.

The next morning it was sunny and I was even more excited. I ate lots of pain au chocolate and we headed for the forest!! At first the boulders were a little wet and so we looked around and checked them out while they were drying. When we started to boulder it was amazing, it is so different to bouldering indoors, I definitely prefer bouldering outside. The boulders are really technical and have REALLY small footholds so you have to be very balanced when you are on them. Before you get onto a boulder you have to arrange your crash mat into the right place depending on the angle of the problem, clean your crash mat with your towel, clean your shoes with the towel or your feet will slip off REALLY easily. Then you're off!!!!!
My climbing buddy today was Becky, who is a very good adult climber, she really nice and we give each other pointers on each problem and advice on how to tackle it. Shaun, the trainee coach, was great to work with and really helped me on the harder problems in Font. By 5pm my feet were killing me and I had to go back to the gite. I was exhausted by the time we were finished, after 5 hours training. That evening Neil showed us more video footage of the day going over general things we were all doing incorrectly and also individual points to work on.

The following day we went to Franchard Isatis and Franchard Cuisiniere, they were only a 10 minute walk in between and were both amazing!!! The problems are colour graded from white to yellow to orange to red to black to white again. I had a good morning and completed 10 red problems and nearly did a white problem (the hardest level). After about 2 hours it started lightly raining so we walked down the road to Cuisiniere. After warming up on a few slabs and trying a few red problems I asked Neil, if I could try something harder so he showed me an overhanging, reachy and awesome problem!!! I chose a sequence and brushed the holds. I was ready to try it! I had my first go and fell off just after the middle bit, it involved lots of heel hooks and big reaches. After I knew I could do the start of it I tried it from a standing start but I noticed there was a huge dyno to the next hold so I tried different places to put my feet and finally got it from standing start. My fingers were really red and nearly bleeding! Neil said I could have tried to join it all up if my fingers had been undamaged but said I shouldn’t because the skin was so thin. I still tried it because I had worked so hard on it but unfortunately fell off at the huge dyno. After that problem I climbed some reds and blues because my fingers were really sore. Not only me though, all the adults were suffering too.

On Thursday we went to a place near Noisey. It was beautiful, as good as all the other places we have been to. Although everyones fingers were still red raw and some were even cut we still had an amazing time. To warm up we did this really hard crimpy slab, after two goes I got up it, and so did Becky. It was very hard and was even harder if you had finger tape on. I didn't feel very warmed up so I tried another slab but I think I warmed up my throat more than my body because 3/4 of the way up there were two lizards, I screamed when I saw them because they gave me such a fright but I went to the top anyway and climbed as fast as I could on the way down!!! I was warmed up after that so I asked Neil for a harder problem to work on so he took me to this reachy, overhanging, juggy problem. It was a kind of traverse then it went up at the end. I really enjoyed this problem.

Since it was April Fools day, the night before Viv and I planned some tricks that we were going to play on Neil for a joke. The first one was putting flour in his chalk bag, it was really funny when he put his hand in and found out it was flour! The second one was when he was showing us a boulder problem we put big sticks and two pine cones in his chalk bag, he got a fright! The third and final one was placing a very heavy rock at the bottom of his climbing bag so he would be carrying extra weight when he lifted it up!

After all the pranks I got back to climbing and Neil set me another challenge, it was another reachy problem with no footholds! We joined in with some German women and used their crash mats. I had my first go and got to the same place as they did. My second go I got to the same place again, came off and went over on my ankle because the rocks underneath the crash mat were uneven.
I watched Neil do a very technical boulder problem then had to go home. My ankle was really painful!

Every evening Neil, Steve and Shaun would give us feedback on the days climbing, giving us individual comments and more general comments using the video footage. On the Friday it was raining and we couldn’t climb, my ankle was still sore and so I couldn’t climb anyway. Neil gave us a talk on training and diet and then we all had private feedback from the three coaches which was very scary. I was last to go through and so had to wait for about 2 hours. Because my ankle was sore Neil gave me a piggyback, they were very nice and gave me lots of helpful feedback.

I absolutely loved my week in Font and hope I can go back very, very soon. Thanks to Neil, Steve and Shaun I learned so much and would love to do more outdoor bouldering.





Gabs is sponsored by La Spotiva & would like to thank them for helping her with providing shoes for this trip!

News Flash - Scots in Spain

Jonnie & Paul on 2008 MCofS Ceuse Trip

West of Scotland climbing machines - Jonathan Stocking & Paul Williamson have recently been on a sport climbing trip in the North of Spain. They have been receiving the guided tour of Santa Linya cave & Terradets from Ex pats - Alan Cassiday, Tom Bolger & Lynne Malcolm.

Both youngsters have managed to tick some extremely impressive stuff on the trips with Jonathan ticking his first 8b & 8b+ red-points & Paul ticking his first 8b red-point (4th go!) & first 8a flash also. To have achieved grades like these at such a young age is nothing short of phenomenal. Especially when you consider that Jonnie's hardest red point before the trip was 8a+ & Paul's 7c!!!!

Both climbers would like to thank the MCofS for receiving financial support to help with funding this trip!

Run down on the First YCS of 2010 - Avril Carr

YCS Round 1 South Scotland, The Peak Wall, Stirling
The Peak Wall at Stirling was an excellent location, compact but with a great variety of climbs and a superb café. We had 56 climbers taking part, making it the biggest ever round in South Scotland. We had an astounding 20 girls competing in the 11-13 age category and at the end of the day there was only 6 points separating the top five. None of the categories are clear cut making for an exciting series with everything to climb for. Two of the GB team came in to demo the climbs and were just as nervous about that as they are when competing.
The level of support for the climbers from parents and participants alike was terrific. Judges kept things moving and we were amazed to be handing out the certificates by 4.30pm. Thanks to the guys that set the routes, the volunteers that administrated, belayed and judged so ably and all the climbers and their parents for putting so much enthusiasm into the day. Next round at Glasgow Climbing Centre on 20thMarch. See you there.

Well done to all of the climbers and good luck in Round 2!

Result can be seen on MCofS website at http://www.mcofs.org.uk/ycs2010-results.asp

YCS North Sotland Round 1 results

Round 1 of the MCofS Youth Climbing Series

The day hosted by Climb @ Inverness Leisure went well with 34 competitors battling gravity, to get to the top of as many routes and problems as possible.
4 junior British Team members were on hand to demonstrate for the masses.
As allways i was very impressed with the standard of climbing but more impressed with the passion and enthusiasim and great encouragment displayed by all the young climbers.

Heres a link to the scores
http://www.mcofs.org.uk/assets/getactive/ycs10%20round1%20north.pdf

See you all at Round 2 -- il post some pics when i gets a chance - Happy Cranking

2010 Scottish Youth Bouldering Championships - Saturday 6th March

These are the final details for the 2010 Scottish Youth Bouldering Championships. First of all, thanks for your patience whilst the Championships have been swapped over from Extreme Dream to Transition Extreme.



There will be two DJs playing live all day, commentary from top local climbers, and free individual event photographs available to all.

That’s not to mention prizes for every category, trophies for keeps, and of course a stack of top quality problems.



Email have been sent out to all those invited. If you know of someone who doesn’t have the info they need, please let me know.



Registration 0900

Briefing & Qualifying 1000 – 1300

Semi-Finals & Finals 1400 – 1630

Finish 1700



Registration forms available in advance by emailing – jf01@transition-extreme.com

The entry fee will be at the reduced price of £15 per competitor. Please pre-pay over the phone on 01224 626 279.

Entry on the day will be cash only and cost £20 – thanks for your help.



ð ENQUIRIES

Please feel free to contact the Event Organiser, Johannes Felter, with any questions you have – either 01224 626279 or 07896 823537 or jf01@transition-extreme.com



ð AGE CATEGORIES

Climbers will compete in the age category in which they finished in 2009.

This event is open to the Top 5 finishers from South & North regions in all three age categories, male and female. You know who you are!



ð TROPHIES

If you won one of the official granite trophies last year, could you please bring it along to Aberdeen – thank you!



ð MCofS ENDORSEMENT

Transition Extreme feel duty bound to make competitors and parents aware that this event is not officially endorsed by the Mountaineering Council of Scotland. Competitors and parents should be aware that bouldering for younger children can carry an increased risk of injury due to the nature of the moves involved. Transition Extreme will use its wealth of experience and the best available advice to set problems to minimize these risks. Parents and competitors are asked to consider the physical demands of each problem very carefully prior to an attempt and if in any doubt should not attempt some problems.





All best wishes and we look forward to seeing you on the day!



“**NEWSFLASH MONDAY 1ST MARCH 2010**



The Scottish Youth Bouldering Championships is now open to wildcard entries from anyone who qualified outside the top 5 last season, or indeed didn’t qualify at all! Transition Extreme Sports Ltd. is a registered charity which wishes to see all unclaimed places in the competition filled up by budding young athletes. Places are available on a first come first served basis, and can be claimed by calling Transition Extreme on 01224 626 279. We hope this will make the competition even more exciting and offer lots of kids the chance to climb in a major competition. Anyone who did qualify in the top 5 last season should make contact as soon as possible to claim their place.

SYBC POSTPONED FOLLOW UP

Hi All,

Just a wee follow up. Its already been brought to my attention that the BMC Leading Ladder final clashes with the proposed date of SYBC in april. I’ll review and get back to you when i can sort something else out.

Also, a big whoops by me was to state the SYCC date. This was done in assumption as it has always been held last weekend in May. I should however point out that we will not be hosting this event this year so i shouldn’t be confirming the date for it. Ruaridh and team up at Inverness will be taking on the SYCC this year, so best to contact Mr Mackenzie direct for details, although i imagine it will be around a similar date if not the same. Apologies, i’m on local anaesthetic for my eye at the moment and think its effecting my brain.....!

All the best,

Al @ Extreme Dream

SYBC 2010 POSTPONED!

Hi folks,

Regretfully after due consideration and with the continued cold and frequently snowy weather in mind we have decided to postpone the Scottish Youth Bouldering Championship 2010, which was due to take place 16th January. Recently the roads, when open, in Strathspey have been treacherous, with gritters/snow plows few and far between. With the forecast for continued indefinite cold weather and further snow showers on top we feel it would be irresponsible and unfair to expect competitors and their families to travel what are often great distances to the comp in these exceptionally poor conditions. I am disappointed to have to make this decision but feel it is the right one. I hope you understand my reasoning, and i apologise for any inconvenience caused. If you wish to speak to me directly i can be reached on 01479 812466 ext 31 or by email alan@extreme-dream.com.

A provisional date of Saturday 24th April has been put forward for the competition, sliding neatly into the biggest gap in between YCS rounds. I will be contacting Rob Adie at the BMC to ensure this does not clash with any coaching events or otherwise, and would also appreciate any feedback you as parents might have towards this revised date.

The Scottish Youth Climbing Championships 2010 will take place on Saturday 29th May 2010.

Once again my apologies for any inconvenience.

I hope other than this you are all having a great 2010 so far,

Good Climbing!

Al @ Extreme Dream