[dobbin]

The British bouldering championships drew to a close at London's Olympia this weekend. The final round of three heats, the BBC's are the national series which decides the king and queen of indoor climbing. London's Olympia stadium is not a climbing wall and free standing boards were brought in for the occasion, as usual these were peppered with volumes and crazy shapes to thrutch and claw around.

Owing to tight schedules, qualification started early on the sunday at 9am. Three and half hours of cranking later the score cards were in and the finalists in isolation. Of the girls both hardcore Austrian chick Sabine Bacher and Jemma Powell flashed the lot whilst Katherine S and Lu Hughes dropped three points to qualify joint third. In the mens comp the Earl qualified first with Gavin Parrot 3pts behind in second. Mark 'Darius' Croxall romped into third followed by newly crowned Dan 'the Hobo' Bradley who spent the night doing yoga in Hyde Park as preparation.

The chick final was too easy and Sabby and Lu both topped out all 5 problems, which meant that Sabby won based on her qualifying score, meaning for the first time that we have an Austrian British Bouldering champion!?

Girls results:
1 Sabine Bacher
2 Lucinda Hughes
3 Katherine Schirrmacher
4 Jemma Powell
5 Rachel Seymour
6 Gabi Masini
7 Kate Mills

The mens final is usually a display of brute force, tenacity and cunning, but the setters extra weetabix that morning meant that 2 of the 5 problems were either impossible or simply too hard for our intrepid contenders and noone could do any of the moves! Only 1 problem got topped by 4 of the 8 finalists, although the Earl came close on another two.

Mens results:
1 Gareth Parry
2 Andrew Earl
3 Ben West
4 Mark Croxall
5 Adrian Baxter
6 Martin Jaggi
7 Jeffrey Landman
8 Dan Bradley

So, thats it for BBC's for another year, in total the top five for this year are :

Andrew   Earl   
Gareth   Parry   
Ben   West   
Mark   Croxall   
Stewart   Watson   

Full results at http://www.indoorsout.co.uk/ (follow the competition climbing links on the side pane).

[a dense loner]

this question may be too obvious and the answer staring me in the face but, why is an austrian in the british bouldering championships?

[saltbeef]

to piss all the british girls off! I think she may live in york, she has flashed 8a in this country which none of our sponsored female heroines have done...

[Bonjoy]

She's redpointed one Uk 8a (Subculture) and flashed up to 7c. Still solid, but a long way from flashing UK 8a.

[webbo]

usually when a countries national champonship is open to jonny foreigner they can win the prize money not the title.
for instance when i came 3rd in the north of england triathlon champs.i did'nt get the 3rd place medal just the prize of a can of carling black label as i was a southern softie from east yorks.

[a dense loner]

i see. saltbeef's info is alway's flawed. i wouldn't like to be one of his patient's

[Jonboy]

How long do the championships last if you go up and watch? ( how many hours), was thinking going to 1 next year either the BBC or the north face UIAA - ICC bouldering world cup...and does any1 know whether that will be held in the UK again next year?

[saltbeef]

you liar! you're always asking me to check your prostate!

[webbo]

you liar! you're always asking me to check your prostate!

arn't you medics supposed to adhere to something called confidentiality. :shock:

[dobbin]

about two or three hours is the length of a final. Qualifiers are considerably longer. BBC's are probably about 2hrs on average.

Have heard on the that BBC's look like will be one in January, two in feb. Venues tbc, would imagine BlackBurn will be in, so probably west view and there will be one in london again.

[squeek]

Dates for BBCs are out now.

BBC's (NOTE that these dates are still provisional - the Vets & Youth date has not yet been finalised):

21 January venue to be confirmed (Ratho or BoulderUK) Seniors only
4 February venue to be confirmed (Ratho or BoulderUK) Seniors only
18 February Olympia as part of the Outdoors Adventure Show, Juniors only
19 February Olympia as part of the Outdoors Adventure Show, Seniors only

So if you're going to watch one BoulderUK might be best, as you could do some bouldering before the final at Earl et al, and it's the nearest to Sheffield.  Do you not fancy entering Jonboy?

I think the Outdoor show at Birmingham will have another world cup comp.

[Jonboy]

No mate just interested in watching for now ...your-self?.  The UIAA-ICC world cup is 17-19 March 2006 in Birmingham NEC again.

[dobbin]

So, r1 is tommorrow. In line with my advanced super pre comp resting strategy, I am already ensconced in Edinburgh ready for action.

For those who are coming (!) see you at Ratho in the morning. Hopefully get some snaps too.

[SA Chris]

Knock it on the head and go to Glen Clova. Mint up here today, just been to Bolsheugh for a lunchitme session.

[dobbin]

its a time honoured tradition that whenever theres a BBC on, the weather will be absolutely fantastic the length and breadth of the country.

Ah well.

[dom]

its a time honoured tradition that whenever theres a BBC on, the weather will be absolutely fantastic the length and breadth of the country.

Ah well.

straight up!

quality couple of days up here.  What you get done at boltsheugh chris??

[SA Chris]

Went to boltsheugh at lunch on Friday. Linked the big steep L ot R traverse, then played with a couple of excellent little eliminates to the right of the deep groove on the right hand side. Rock was remarkably dry. Bouldered at Banff on Sat before the surf session. Beach level has dropped amking the sitters on the front a bit harder and better. Surfed Aberdeen yesterday.

[saltbeef]

so... who won I know terrace ghost came 2nd.

[squeek]

I don't know, some random flat lander called Walter turns up and walks away with it!  :roll:

http://www.indoorsout.co.uk/index.htm#bbc0506_r1_results.htm

[dobbin]

Dutch national champ apparently. I know i have met him before, suspect perhaps in Cresc...

Anyway, I had a terrible day out. Basically, 5 of the problems were completely steady so that should have been 50 points in the bag, but no - due to the number of people there and the amount of lines that conflicted at least somewhere on the route (i.e. you werent just waiting for your own queue, you were waiting for another queue as well) the wait time between attempts was up to 30 minutes and I just couldnt keep warm. I'd pull on and get shut down in one or two moves.

so, I resigned myself to being crap at comps and took some pics. It was much to dark and the ickle flash thats built in was having a hard time getting enough light on the subject, so they could do with some love in photoshop.

http://tangled.tv/piccies/thumbnails.php?album=18

[SA Chris]

Something I have a serious bugbear about is honeypotting of problems. Route setters usually have a large wall to play with, and almost infinite variation, but still manage to create problems that overlap each other, or are too close together to be done safely at the same time. If they are hard probs that everyone needs to put some effort in on, it only makes it worse.

[squeek]

Aye, wouter's no punter, he's got a bleau.info account with quite a bit of stuff that he's done.  Saw him do hyper tension when we were out there.

Problem with crossing routes is although they've got big walls and can set any problems they want, they've got to set 20 problems.  If each problem went straight up you'd need a problem roughly every 8 feet to keep them separate.  So that's 160 foot long wall, but every problem would go straight up which wouldn't allow them to set the problems they wanted.  If you allowed 12 foot per problem so they can move about a little more you're already on 240 foot.  I don't know how big ratho is, but do they have that much space?

There did seem to be quite a high turnout for the ratho comp though (just going off the amount on the list I wasn't there).

[SA Chris]

Fairy nuff, but how often does the last half hour of a comp consist of twenty or so souls trying two hard problems right next to each other, while other parts of the wall are deserted?

[fatneck]

Qualitee shot Dobbin  

[dobbin]

The mighty graeme Alderson has been on and says :

If any one is intending entering the BBC at BoulderUk tomorrow please be warned that I have only 3 more spaces left for the men - plenty of room for women.

I will turn people away. BUK does not have a lot of space and a limit of 40 has been in place the last couple of years.

So 1st come 1st served so to speak.

[a dense loner]

that is a quality shot

[dobbin]

he's a good looking lad eh!

got some more pics and stuff :


http://www.tangled.tv/piccies/thumbnails.php?album=24

[Houdini]

that is a quality shot

Just don't ask him for the time.  His watch stopped years ago.

[tubbs]

that is a quality shot

Just don't ask him for the time.  His watch stopped years ago.

I can see that, from his hairstyle, several things stopped years ago!

[dobbin]

We only have one comp next year. Its gonna be in the Summer and god only knows where - hopefully the new uberwall in sheffield (then I can lie in). More as it breaks comp fans.

[squeek]

Oh good I can go climbing instead of being a judge.