Congratulations to Angus, Eleanor, Jaime and Rachel on retaining their place on the GB team.  Commiserations to Ross who is still recovering from injury and missed out on automatic selection.  Hopefully he will have the opportunity to recover and demonstrate his capabilities at the March selection event.

Other Scots making the team are Nikki and Steven Addison, Dylan Mackenzie, Jonny Field, Jonny Stocking and Paul Williamson.  Emily Eadie from Inverness has also been put on the Watch list for the March event.

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.

 Following the great success of the 2010 inaugural schools competition the 2011 Schools Competition is back with more venues and a longer open round. The event runs on similar lines to the Leading Ladder and entry to the competition is free but competitors must be competing on behalf of their school and pay all normal centre entry fees. The first round will run in January-February and a grand final in March at Glasgow Climbing Centre. As the number of walls being built at schools is increasing year on year the MCofS are pleased to be supporting this initiative to encourage more children at schools to take up climbing.

Early on Sunday 7^th November 22 members of the Quickdraw Climbing Club turned up at EICA to attempt to climb the equivalent height of Britain’s top 3 peaks  Ben Nevis, Snowdon and Scafell Pike (3407 metres in total).  At the end of the 4 hours they had allotted themselves for the challenge, and after some impressive individual performances, they in fact topped 7,290m, more than twice their target and the equivalent of the World’s 92nd highest peak, Mount Mana in the Himalayas.

    Photos of the day: Pippa's and Scott's

Chair, Scott Forsyth said “We were a bit worried as some of our climbers were unable to attend, but the kids achieved our original target in just over 90 minutes and they were all so keen we just kept going.  EICA kindly allowed us the use of their slab wall so we could stick together and we had a rota of parents belaying.  The funds we raise will be used to fund our 3 year plan to develop our kids’ climbing skills and our adults’ coaching skills.”

Read More for individual results on the day:

Saturday - newly introduced IFSC categories for the Junior event saw 70 competitors turn out for the 2010 British Lead Climbing Championships Junior competition.  While Quickdraw’s mentor Natalie Berry is used to being in a league of her own this time it was literal as well as figurative as she was the only 18/19 girl competing.  This didn’t stop her from giving it her all with 2 tops on her qualifying routes and time beating her on her final climb.

We didn’t have anyone climbing in Youth A girls which was won by the amazing Kitty Wallace from Westway, London, but we had 4 girls in the Youth B competition.  Abby and Alexandra climbed well in what was a tough field.  Abby out-climbed her sister on the 7b first qualifier route on the Old Comp Wall, while Alexandra turned the tables on the 7b+ second qualifier on the Hanger Wall so that they shared 10^th place.  Eleanor made the final six and was the first to make the grey volume on the 7c final route but unfortunately couldn’t hold on and finished third.  Rachel made the leap to big cheers from the audience, kept her grip, then made her way through several more moves only just missing out on her third top of the day to take the Youth B title.   

Eilidh and Megan were representing the Quickdraws in the Youth C girls and came a respectable 10^th and 8^th respectively in their first BLCC competition.

In the boys groups we had no climbers in the Junior (won by Ed Hamer), Youth A (won by Luke Tilley with EICA climber Jonathan Field in third place) or Youth B (won by Jonny White).  However Angus and William more than made up for this by taking first and second place in the Youth C, William missing out by the narrowest of margins on the top spot.

There are four competitor categories – junior male and junior female (born 1995-1999), and senior male and senior female (born 1994 or earlier).

Team managers will be looking at performances in this event as it will be used as part of the continuing monitoring process for the GB Climbing Team.  Consequently, results will be considered, and will count, when selection for next year's GB team is made after the event.

The Open Youth Competition is open to young climbers born between 1 January 1992 and 31 December 1999 and who are eligible to compete for Great Britain (i.e. holds a GB passport). Others may be invited at the discretion of the BMC. This leading competition is designed to be a fun, but competitive event.

Will Carroll has kindly allowed us to link to his photos of the competition: The Heats

Finals Day

Wow that was some weekend. 

Congratulations first to Eleanor and Rachel who did really well in their first World Championships finishing 38th and 41st respectively out of the 62 girls in their group.  Natalie Berry made the semi-finals, but at 10th just missed out on a finals place.  Jonny Stocking just missed the Semi-finals with a 27th place after the qualification climbs. Team GB finished in 14th place.

A massive thank you to all the Quickdraws that volunteered at the World Youth Climbing Championships.  According to the EICA facebook the IFSC said “you were the best team of staff and volunteers they have worked with :-)”

Thanks too to Kay Brown for running the face painting/Tattoo stall on Saturday.  Not as busy as we had hoped although the Czech team kept us going, but we raised nearly £40 toward the next round of mentoring.

You can access full results via the IFSC calendar page

The team that will represent GB at the World Youth Championships in September was announced on Sunday and will include Eleanor Hopkins and Rachel Carr in the Youth B girls category.  Ross Kirkland, who is currently suffering tendonitis will be assessed at the end of August. 

Our mentors Natalie Berry and Jonny Stocking will join them, together with fellow Scots, Paul Williamson, Jonny Field, Robert Mackenzie, Dylan Mackenzie and Steven Addison.  This means the Scots could account for nearly 50% of the GB team.

(photo by Anthea MacKenzie)

The BMC Open Youth Championship took place on Saturday 24th July at EICA.  There were around 100 competitors including the GB and French national teams.  Competitors were split into their International categories and had 2 qualifying climbs. The climbers were scored using the international scoring system that takes the place a climber finishes in relation to the other competitors over the hold points they score, with the top 8 going through to a final climb.

Quickdraw had 10 climbers taking part on the day