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destination:
BMC British Bouldering
Championships 2010, Millhouses Park, Sheffield
when: 26-27 June '10
Another year, another BBC's.... It
was a very sunny, very hot, weekend in Sheffield. Many
came out to watch Britain's top boulderer's do what they
do best - climb some really hard problems!!
Arriving around mid-day on the
Saturday, we caught the Junior finals. They might be
younger but the problems set seemed just as hard as the
Seniors on Sunday, setting at V4-V8 Female up at V7 and
Male V8. Senior problems were up at V5-V10
The BMC followed the IFSC rules for
this years BBC's changing the set-up from; On sight 5+
minutes for each finalist, and then back to isolation
for 5mins. This meant more than one male/ female
competitor would have been climbing at one time as they
worked their way across the problems. This year it was 8
minutes of observation, followed by 4+ minutes of
climbing and only one male/ female finalist on the wall
at any time.
This did draw out the competition
slightly and left many thinking that the BBC's were
being used as a practice run for the IFSC Bouldering
World Cup at Cliffhanger the following weekend, but to
be fair it did allow each finalist more time in the
spotlight and more focus on them which must have helped
their motivation.
The Senior Females qualifying began
at 9:30am and the Males at 10:30am on Sunday. Having had
to register 8am-9am it was already a long day for some.
Qualifying ended at 1pm, and the finalists were back in
Isolation at 2pm ready to begin at 3pm.
Pirie begun his preparation the
night before trying to get an early night but ending up
watching South Park till gone 11pm! He was up again at
6:30am to make sure he was focused and ready to push it
on the day. It was a little chaotic on the mats with the
Female Senior qualifying over-lapping the Men's. Getting
on to the problems in the order that he wanted to try
them wasn't too hard but there was some waiting time
involved leaving him to rush to all the problems he had
not yet tried for the last half hour. He managed to tick
off his first top-out early on which gave his spirit a
boost to pull out two more and 4 bonus points leaving
him with 34 points. Read his blog
here
Showing up un-announced were Andy
Earl and Chris Graham to try the problems on offer. Earl
had to drop out of qualifying early on due to injury,
and Graham looked like he was having a training session
rather than competing!! It was nice to see them there
though and we are sure it gave the other competitors a
kick to get their game face on and try their hardest!!
Results:
For
the Juniors; Charlotte Garden took 1st place, moving up
from 4th place in 2009, with Lily Rosengard and Rhoslyn
Frugtniet in 2nd and 3rd respectively. Technique and
planning far outweighed top-outs across the girls and
this is what secured a win for Charlotte.
For the Seniors; Everyone was really
proud of Ned to even be showing up on the day having
just flown in from Europe at 4am that morning. He was
looking a little tired pre-qualifying and the finals
were just not going his way at all, leaving last years
BBC title holder to take 4th. Gaz Parry was pumping out
the problems to take 2nd, with Nigel Callendar taking
1st place. In third was Jon Partridge.
It was a great weekend and we look
forward to seeing how it all shapes up for next year :)
PHOTOS - coming soon!!
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