CrackFest - Gilbert and Hammond crowned Crack King and Queen
- Monday 27th March 2023
Ryan Gilbert and Lucie Hammond were crowned Crack King and Queen at the WideBoyz CrackFest at the Sheffield Depot over the weekend of 25/26 March.
Around 370 crack-climbing addicts converged onto the Sheffield Depot to lay siege to the various problems and challenges set for CrackFest 2023. With an additional 150 tickets made available over and above last year’s allocation, CrackFest 2023 was the biggest and best yet of the annual competition jointly organised and held by the WideBoyz and the Depot in Sheffield. Attracting climbers from all over Britain, CrackFest also attracted numerous climbers from overseas as well with individuals/teams attending from Holland, Germany, the Czech Republic, Norway, Malta and France. One climber for the US was understood to have changed his flights for a trip in Europe so he could attend!
As with the two previous CrackFests, this year's ‘competition’ once again placed the emphasis on crack climbing rather than flat-out winning. Crack School workshops were held throughout the day for those keen to get a ‘leg-up’ on either the basic or advanced crack climbing techniques.
In the ‘competition’ itself, CrackFesters had to attempt a total of 25 problems set by the Wideboyz and the Depot setters. Whilst many were on the Depot’s Competition Wall itself the rest were scattered about the centre. Every jamming technique was tested from fingers, thin to regular hands to fist jams, flared jams, arm bars/chicken wings, squeeze chimneys and overhanging offwidths.
The standard of the problems varied from V0 up to around V8/9; suitable for everyone from jamming beginners to advanced. Some of the problems required extensive jamming across a range of skills whilst some involved minimal jamming but more indoor bouldering skills.
One of the harder problems featured a swinging start into a jump sideways into a flared hand jam; in other words many climbers' worst nightmares! Recently retired World Cup boulderer and keen crack-climber, Alex Waterhouse, who had ‘popped-in’ commented that one of the problems, #20, would “comfortably split a World Cup field”!
In addition to the crack-based problems, several so-called ‘fun’ challenges were dotted about the Depot. Strength was typically the base metric on test in these but most had more than an element of climbing skill involved too. In total there were five WideBoyz Challenges some of which were reminiscent of the problems set in the BIFF (Beastmaker International Footless Festivals) which ran a few years ago at the Climbing Works. A ‘squeeze-box’ involved hanging footless against an overhanging wall whilst a ‘sit-up’ challenge involved hanging off two-foot jams - in an inverted position, obviously – whilst ‘ringing’ a bell by bashing it with your head!
Another involved a strength/pull-down challenge whilst a Wild Country Challenge involved hanging off a jam and placing a series of nuts and cams into various ‘cracks’. For anyone who really fancied testing their jamming techniques a flared jam hang challenge involved hanging between two hideously rounded Contact Holds. Another challenge, supplied by Beta Climbing, had contestants doing a two-arm hang in a flared horizontal crack in a purpose-made gig supplied by The Climbing Works. Another, involved hanging in an extremely flared jam slot created by two Contact holds.
During the day a total of five cash prizes, each worth £80, were given away by the WideBoyz to the climber recording the best time and beating Tom Randall’s time/score. Alex Waterhouse set the best time for hanging the flared jams; likewise, the squeezebox prize also went to another deserving winner. The WideBoyz times weren’t beaten on two other challenges however so the prize money ‘rolled over’ to the fifth and final challenge, The Beta Challenge, the lock-off challenge. Some good times had been set during the day and in true ‘cliffhanger’ style, young Dylan Heason beat the time set by Tom Randall and took home the roll-over prize then at £240; nice work Dylan!
The final round was once again a duel-speed climb on two identical mirrored problems. Once again, it was more about fun rather than difficulty and the winners, Ryan Gilbert and Lucie Hammond, picked up some excellent prizes as well as the ‘Golden Fist’ trophy which they’ll keep for the year. It’s the second year running that Ryan Gilbert has won Crack King; no doubt he’ll be back next year trying to make it three in a row. Zac Ely and Bryn Heason took second and third place in the men’s competition whilst Lucy Garlic and Rebecca Inch completed the women’s podium.
Keep an eye out on social media and YouTube for the videos that will follow and if you’re around in Sheffield you can pop into the Depot for the next few days and try the problems for yourself. Don’t forget your crack gloves though!