Scottish Senior and Veteran lead climbers in competition free-for-all!
Edinburgh International Climbing Arena hosted our first ever Scottish Lead Climbing Comp for adults (for senior and veteran climbers). It also invovled two difficulty categories ('Hard' and 'Easy') and a speed event. Well done and thanks to all who came along and took part to create such a great atmosphere on the day and with a great mix of the young and the old(er)! The format was more laid-back than a formal championship, although the routes were certainly not a push-over. The morning qualification round gave competitors 4 hours to complete 2 routes, belayed and scored by their climbing partners just like the old 'Leading Ladder' events from days of yore. Predictably, no one wanted to be first up on any route and it was a brave man or women who attacked the routes on the Hanger Wall first! Inevetibaly, there was a bit of a rush near the end of qualification which saw people on their final route.
The Final Round was a complete contrast with the top 5 in each category going into isolation (a very new experience for all of them) to be escorted out for one attempt on a route with scoring and belaying by ClimbScotland volunteers.
It was also great to see the speed event attracting so much attention from both seniors and veterans who had never tried it before and perhaps should have known better(?); although the times were a little below Olympic standard and the competition friendly, it was no less intense. The wild encouragement was a fitting final to a great day's climbing, that had a good mix of fun and serious competition.
The SLCC ran alongside the Scottish Paraclimbing Festival and both events used some of the routes set for the Scottish Youth Climbing Championships from the day before. Our setting team had been hard at work the week prior to the competition creating an amazing series of routes suitable for all the competitors in the youth, senior and para competitions - no easy task! So thanks go to:
- Robert MacKenzie
- Calum McBain
- Robbie Phillips
- Barry Harper
- Gaz Vincent
- Lisandro Defays
- Thom Davies
- Neill Busby
We will be requesting feedback in due course and would really like to hear what everyone thinks and any ideas to improve any future event.
We would like to say thanks to
Edinburgh International Climbing Arena for hosting it for us; and of course a huge thanks to all the competitors who made their way to Edinburgh for the competition. A massive thank you must go to our Competitions Coordinators (Scott Forsyth and John Donaldson, ably assisted by Scott Donaldson) and all the volunteers who acted as belayers and judges and chaperones for the 'Final Round' which made the competition possible.
The Scottish Lead Climbing Championships where supported by
SportScotland and our event sponsor
2Pure who provided prizes from Camp and So-ill for the podiums.
If anyone is interested in taking part in next year's SLCC, you can find more information on the
SLCC page.