What a day!
Edinburgh International Climbing Arena hosted the Scottish Youth Climbing Championships on Saturday 7 Septmber. The championships includes lead (and top-rope for the Youth E and Youth E categories) and the Speed Championships. This year, perhaps becasue of the 'Olympic effect', we had the biggest turnout the event has ever seen, with 163 young climbers (93 girls and 70 boys) from all over the UK and further afield travelling to Scotland for the competition.
A qualifying round on some tough routes spread across The Tower Wall, The Hanger Wall and The old competition wall saw extremely close competition across all catergories. Despite the difficulty of the routes in the final being 8a+ at the top end for the Youth A and Juniors, there were still some nail bitting finals with some catergories having to be decided on time. The Speed event was as popular as always, with 76 competitors taking part. The Mini Speed event for Youth D and Youth E attracted 26 climbers (male and female) whilst the largest category was the Girls Youth A and B.
Our setting team worked hard the week prior to the competition creating some amazing routes. This year it was doubly complicated as some of the routes were also to be used for the senior and vets competition and the ParaClimb event being held on the Sunday. Thanks go to:
- Robert MacKenzie
- Calum McBain
- Robbie Phillips
- Barry Harper
- Gaz Vincent
- Lisandro
- Thom Davies
- Neill Busby
The Scottish Youth Climbing Championships was supported by
SportScotland and our event sponsors
Psychi and
2Pure who provided prizes for the podiums. We would like to thank the sponsors who helped to make this event happen and also to
Edinburgh International Climbing Arena who hosted it for us, and of course a huge thanks to all the competitors who made there way to Edinburgh for the competition.
Last but not least, a massive thank you to our Competitions Coordinators (Scott Forsyth and John Donaldson, ably assisted by Scott Donaldson) and the army of volunteers who acted as belayers, judges and chaperones who made the competition possible.
If you wish to find out more about the SYCC and the SYSC look on the
SYCC competition page.