McNeice and McArthur are the 2023 RAB CWIF champions
- Tuesday 21st March 2023
Erin McNeice and Hamish McArthur dominated the 2023 RAB CWIF to take the wins over the weekend.
With an eclectic mix of uber-modern parkour-style and old-skool powerful, the RAB Climbing Works International Festival – a.k.a. the RAB CWIF – was, once again, a rousing ‘call to arms’ for the bouldering competition cognoscenti; at the end of the two-day event – and nearly forty blocs later – Erin McNeice and Hamish McArthur emerged as the winners ahead of a field of super strong competitors.
Traditionally, the CWIF has been seen as the start of the international boulder competition season and once again some of the world’s best boulderers were present for the sixteenth CWIF. Saturday was qualification day when the international stars and ‘locals’ rubbed shoulders alongside each other. Representing the international community at the CWIF were Japanese stars Ogata Yoshiyuki and Sohta Amagasa, Canadian Olympians Sean McColl and Alannah Yip, Belgian Chloe Caulier and Ukrainian Jenya Kazbekova. Also signed up for the competition were former Team GB competitors, Nathan Phillips and Alex Waterhouse. Competing alongside them were a number of well-known team members which included Jim Pope, Billy Ridal and Holly Toothill as well as the guns of Toby Roberts, Hamish McArthur and Jack MacDougall, Erin McNeice. Max The Future, the 2022 CWIF winner, was overseas training with the Slovenian team.
Joe Xiberras and Hamish McArthur finished the men’s qualification in joint top position with Toby Roberts and Jim Pope very close behind. Both Ogata Yoshiyuki and Sohta Amagasa were in contention albeit some distance behind the leaders. Also in the mix was Canadian Sean McColl; impressively, McColl was returning to the scene after shoulder surgery. Nathan Phillips and Alex Waterhouse were likewise through to the semi-finals. All three top slots in the women’s qualification round all went to international competitors; Alannah Yip, Jenya Kazbekova and Chloe Caulier.
Sunday’s semi-finals were pretty close rounds – especially in the men’s. Hamish McArthur took the honours with three tops with Jack MacDougall and Sohta Amagasa trailing with two tops each. Ben Preston, Jim Pope and Toby Roberts also made the cut; each of them getting two tops as well. The women’s round was even higher scoring and closer; Jenya Kazbekova, Alannah Yip, Holly Toothill and Erin McNeice all got four tops whilst fifth and sixth places went to Louise Flockhart and Chloe Caulier with three tops.
The men’s finals opened with a parkour-style coordination problem. As usual, such blocs are often divisive and it was so on this occasion. Remarkably, Sohta Amagasa nailed the opening coordination sequence involving an outrageous swing-and-jump but then failed to top out. Only Jack MacDougall and Hamish McArthur made the top; impressively Jack topped out on his second attempt. M2 was the total opposite; comprising box-like volumes on a steeply overhanging wall, it typified the ‘full-on-contact’ bloc which was obviously very powerful. Toby Roberts absolutely crushed it; only Hamish McArthur could match. M3 was shorter and less steep but involved very powerful moves on sloping dual-texture mouldings. All the finalists got the zone hold and whilst Jim Pope and Toby Roberts got super close they couldn’t ‘control’ the finishing hold as required. Hamish McArthur however, did manage to do just that but it took him three attempts and an incredible effort to hold the dual-texture side of the volume to get the tick.
The final problem, M4, proved not only to be brutally powerful but an absolute show-stopper! A simple set-up led immediately into an outrageous backward one-arm dyno after which the competitors had to catch and then hold an opposing edge in an ‘iron cross’ position. As with M2 only two competitors, Toby Roberts and Hamish McArthur, could muster the power to come even close. Given how strong the finalists were, that the rest of them were totally shut down should speak volumes as to how hard this bloc was. Toby’s efforts were utterly amazing on the opening crux move and as MC, setter and Work’s Director Percy Bishton said, had ‘them’ re-writing the textbook chapter on what the human shoulder can achieve! Spanned between the two opening holds in the iron-cross position Toby was able to control his body and then rotate and make contact again with his feet and move into the final sequence which involved locking a two-finger pocket – footless – to take an overhead back-hand on yet another crimp on the ‘inside’ of a volume to finish. Climbing last, and with already with three tops to his name, Hamish tried to replicate Toby’s ‘iron cross’ move but in the end, opted to use his considerable height advantage and stay on the initial footholds to ‘bypass’ Toby’s acrobatics. However, Hamish then had to ‘fit’ his larger frame into a ‘smaller box’ to finish the problem. Both Hamish and Toby’s ascent of M4 were utterly outstanding and had the crowd go crazy!
On any other day, in any other competition, Toby’s ascent of M4 could well have won the day; that win however -and deservedly so - went to Hamish; topping all four blocs was remarkable. Having been third in the 2022 CWIF, Hamish was clearly delighted with his win. Toby Roberts, finished in second place again the same as in last year’s CWIF. Jack MacDougall took third place forcing Jim Pope, Sohta Amagasa and Ben Preston off the podium.
Like McArthur in the men’s, the women’s final was dominated by Erin McNeice. Climbing last, Erin came out and promptly flashed W1, a steep and powerful bloc, to establish an early lead. The only other finalist to top W1 was Jenya Kazbekova; she did so on her second attempt. W2, a super-techie slab, was flashed by both Erin and Chloe Caulier as well as topped by Jenya Kazbekova and Alannah Yip. No one got remotely close to the powerful bloc-buster which was W3 so it was all down to W4 to resolve the final positions. Despite some extremely valiant and close efforts, Holly Toothill was the first climber to get to the top on W4. Not to be outdone, Erin also topped out on her third attempt. That was sufficient for her to take the overall win. Overall, Erin’s was a masterclass of thoughtful and well-executed and powerful climbing; having finished the 2022 season by winning the British Lead Championship and winning Plywood Masters earlier this spring, Erin is currently making a very strong statement on the British competition scene. Completing the women’s podium was Jenya Kazbekova who finished in second place – one up from her third-place finish in 2022 – and Chloe Caulier who finished in third.
Reflecting on the final positions it’s great to see that the current youth/junior system has produced such capable climbers. That ‘home’ athletes put posted such strong performances in the CWIF against renowned international climbers is very positive indeed.
Next weekend will see the return of CrackFest at The Depot – watch this space for a report on that - and then after that, the international World Cup season kicks off in earnest.
Meanwhile, watch the CWIF Final livestream below…