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http://www.thebmc.co.uk/Feature.aspx?id=2540

Britain's premier lead climbing competition will take place over the weekend of 9-10 October. This year the British Lead Climbing Championships will be held at Edinburgh International Climbing Arena, Ratho on their International Standard Competition Wall.
Come and watch Britains best climbers battle it out hanging upside down on the steepest climbing wall in Britain, all vying for the chance to become British Lead Climbing Champion.

The reigning national champions are:

Senior Male: Drew Haigh
Senior Female: Natalie Berry
Junior Male: Jonathan Stocking
Junior Female: Kitty Wallace


New for this year we will be using IFSC youth age categories with the addition of a Youth C category. So the ages for the youth categories are as follows:-

Youth C – must be born between 1997 and 1998

Youth B – must be born between 1996 and 1995

Youth A – must be born between 1994 and 1993

Juniors – must be born between 1992 and 1991

Senior entrants must be born between 1992 and 1966.

Veterans must be born in 1965 or earlier.

If you are born in 1992 or 1991 you have the choice of competing in either the Senior or Junior categories of the event or both if you want.

The BLCC uses the same format as the European Youth Series; two routes are climbed by all competitors during the qualification rounds, these are climbed ‘flash’, which means that the routes are demonstrated by the routesetters and the competitors watch the demo and then watch each other climb. The climbing order is changed for the second route to maintain fairness. The climbers who qualify through to the final are put into an isolation zone and the final routes are climbed on-sight.

The basis for ‘scoring’ in the BLCC (and other leading competitions) is fairly simple. The higher up the route the more ‘points’ you gain. Each hold is assigned a score or number. If you touch this hold (e.g. hold 25) then you get credited with '25-'. If you hold this hold you get '25'. If you make progress towards the next hold (but don’t touch it) you get '25+'. The actual ranking for the qualification round is a bit more complicated though, with square roots of the multiple of the ranking from each qualification coming into play.

Time does not have a bearing on the score but there is always a maximum time given by the chief judge in which the climbers must complete the route. If the climber is still climbing when this time period has elapsed (normally 6-8 minutes), they will be asked to stop climbing and their score will be taken from the highest point they reached at the end of the stated time period.

There is no qualification process to gain entry into the BLCC and the competition is open to anyone. You've got to be in it to win it, so download an entry form now. The Juniors (born 1994-1998) and Veterans (born 1965 or earlier) will compete on the Saturday, with the Seniors (born 1993 - 1966) climbing on the Sunday. We look forward to welcoming new and established competitors