Scottish Youth and Para Climbing Championships at EICA

• Tuesday 22nd September 2015

Sept 22^nd; 2015

Saturday 19^th saw many of the best youth and disabled climbers gather at the Edinburgh International Climbing Arena for the Scottish Youth and Para Climbing Competitions.

The scene at EICA with the comp about to get underway. Photo Robbie Phillips

The competitor ranks for the lead and top-roping comp – numbering nearly 150 in total - were swollen by many from the south, including many from the GB Junior Team, as the event was also the second round in the British Junior Championship. Eighty-odd climbers also pitched-in for a go at the speed competition.

The event also featured the second ever Scottish Para Climbing Competition – an event which saw nearly 25 competitors tackle two routes and three boulder problems. This event also counted towards the British Para Climbing Series so members of the GB Para Team had travelled north to compete.

The comp in full flow. Photo Robbie Phillips

Robbie Phillips, along with Neill Busby, Jessica McCaskey, Lisandro Defays and Alan Cassidy were the setters for the comps. Robbie told CLIMBER: "The competition was a massive success, the biggest and certainly most competitive Scottish Youth Champs we've ever had! I was really pleased to see so many faces from south of the border taking part - as the SYCC is now part of the British series, it has certainly made a much more interesting event than years previous. The standard of the British youth competitors continues to be pushed ever higher; the routes we set get harder, the sequences more challenging and despite all of this the kids meet our challenges, sometimes surpassing them and shocking even us! This year we set a difficult competition – not just that but we chose to make it much more technically focused with some really hard vertical face climbs in qualifiers as well as a steep power-fest on the comp wall. I felt that the kids really rose to the challenge! There were some notably impressive performances from obvious contenders such as Jim Pope and Molly Thompson-Smith, but I’d have to say one of the young Youth C kids, Hamish McArthur really blew me away… that kid has some strong fingers!!!”

CLIMBER has also been in touch with Jim who said: “The routes from the competition were really fun and a great mixture of climbing styles, some long and pumpy, some more powerful and even a 30 meter slab! Its great to see young climbers from all over Britain coming to compete against each other at such a great venue.”

The results from the lead comp were as follows:

Many thanks to Robbie Phillips for the use of his images. Finally, click through here to see more info on the comp and the results.