SYBC - Aberdeen

Yesterday was the SYBC (Scottish Youth Bouldering Championships) in Aberdeen. I qualified for this by placing top 5 in last years YCS, although earlier in the week they had made it and open competition so everyone could do it. Jamie and Abi also qualified so I went to the comp with them.

We travelled up to Aberdeen on the Friday night, to save having to get up early on the Saturday to get there in time for registration. The car journey was pretty fun and actually went quite quickly. We arrived at our hotel, which was better than I thought it would be, and Gary and my Dad went to get Chinese (really healthy for the night before a competition) We got to bed at 12 which was probably a bit too late.

I got up at 7 the next morning, had a shower, had breakfast and we headed off to find the climbing centre. Registration was at 9 so there wasn't really any rush. After a couple of de-tours and asking people on the street we finally made it to Transition Extreme. It's a pretty cool climbing centre with some awesome looking routes. I walked in a saw that a lot of people were already there checking out the boulders (numbered 1-20) I got registered and got given a number (28) I was in the 14-16 category (more like 14-17) which meant we had to do boulders 11-20 and we had 4 hours to do them in. 10 boulders to do in 4 hours, we had hundreds of time, so we just took our time going round them together, along with Ali. We had to finish the boudlers with two hands on the top of the wall which was quite odd because when I get to the last hold I am used to just coming down after matching that. So that took a bit to get used to.

Most of the boulders weren't too bad, a couple of tricky crux's but I wouldn't say anything was over V4. There were some juggy powerful ones and some small crimpy ones, a good range of stuff. I think the best one was number 17 tan. I was the first to try it out of Me, Jamie and Abi. It had a few good holds then onto a horizontal roof which you cleared with two juggy holds. Then it was out onto another jug then across to an edge then up to two crimps then quite a good hold to finish. Watching others I noticed that you were meant to rockover above the roof to get up to the two crimps but when I got there I thought this seemed two hard so I missed out one of the holds and just campused to it. Jamie also did this.

I managed to top every boulder first time except for number 20. Not being able to do this was down to my height. It was a sit start on an edge then a big move up to another crimpy edge. This was the move I couldn't do, even standing up I was about 2 inches too short. This was soo annoying because all the taller people managed it fine. All of my three tries resorted to the same end no matter how many different ways I tried. It was set to use a triangular feature for your hand but this just wasnt possible, only Chris Sharma could of held this feature. Jamie managed to get past this part and onto the "Bonus" hold which gave him one extra point and meant he qualified for the semi-finals. Abi also qualified for the semi's.

I was the only one out of the three who didn't get into the semi's and needless to say I wasn't very happy and I was in a bit of a mood for about an hour or two after. Although another pep talk off of Jamie helped. We went up to the cafe and had something to eat and watched the skating, whilst we waited for the semi's to begin.

One thing I should point out is that the three people ahead of Jamie were 17 and basically built like tanks, which made the competition a bit unfair.

I watched the semi's and Jamie and Abi did really well ! Jamie managing to get the furthest on the second boulder. This second boulder was a sit start up to a massive sloper then you just had to palm yourself up to the top, nobody topped it but Jamie was inches away. Their first boulder was a slopey black one and Jamie didn't quite manage to top this but the other did which meant two of the older guys went through to the finals. Abi also just had a place in the finals taken from her by a few points. Well done to both Abi and Jamie for doing so well and getting to the semi-finals !

After this we packed up and began the journey back, not before a stop at Burger King though. It was a really good weekend and I ended up coming 5th.

 The Grey Boulder (number 20) I couldn't do