UKC

SIBL 2010/11 Round 3 - The Castle

© Nick Pope/ SIBL

Round 3 of the 2010/11 SIBL was held at The Castle Climbing Centre. This was another well attended competition, with over 190 competitors. There was a whole day's worth of activities lined up for everyone running alongside the main competition including speed climbing competitions, a lecture by Andy Kirkpatrick, a showing of the Alistair Lee's new film The Prophet starring Leo Holding with the day ending in the annual SIBL/Castle Christmas Party.

All the Castle's diverse walls were used for the comp with head route setter Mike Langley and his team creating problems for all abilities and ages. The problems had been set using a set of brand new yellow-coloured Revolution holds which made tracking down the routes within the centre easy. The whole thing looked great and all day competitors commented on the quality of the holds.

At three o'clock the juniors finished but the Open categories still had another hour left. The juniors were kept busy with free entry into a fun speed-climbing competition on the top floor where they raced against the clock and each other, with competitors recording some very fast times.

At four o'clock the Open categories had finished and the Castle Team set about setting up the Head to Head finals whilst the winners were worked out. This year's head to head route came in the form of a speed traverse of the recently-completed overhanging wall on the mezzanine floor. The route involved three dynamic moves and the need for good balance.

Jon Partridge, Kitty Wallace, Liam Halsey and Rob Gajland were called into isolation and, one by one, attempt the traverse. The first move, a dyno to a good jug, proved just that bit too far for Rob Gajland, hands just slipping off the hold. Both Jon Partridge and Liam Halsey managed the first dynamic move and tackled the hold-less traverse, volumes only for their feet. Jon fell just short of the next move which ended his attempt whilst Liam powered on to complete the route in a very quick time of 36.4 seconds. Kitty Wallace's approach however was a more thoughtful and controlled affair, displaying her climbing ability to overcome most long moves statically, doing all the dynamic moves with out jumping. The last move proved to much for even Kitty to do statically and although very close, her attempted to dyno the finish fell just short of the hold.

The winners of the Castle Round were:

Male Open

  1. Liam Halsey 187
  2. Jon Partridge 186
  3. Rob Gajland 160

Female Open

  1. Kitty Wallace 165
  2. Belinder Fuller 153 (55.3 seconds head to head time)
  3. Jen Wilby 153 (1.42 head to head time)

Male Junior

  1. Jez Etherton 164
  2. Jonny White 160
  3. Oscar Krumlinde 159

Female Junior

  1. Molly Thompson-Smith 178
  2. Lily Rosengard 178 (places decided by the Girls)
  3. Becky Whaley 157

Head to head winner

Liam Halsey (Route completed in 36 seconds)


Revolution Wacky Holds in action  © Nick Pope/ SIBL
Revolution Wacky Holds in action
© Nick Pope/ SIBL
A tricky slab problem  © Nick Pope/ SIBL
A tricky slab problem
© Nick Pope/ SIBL

At 6pm the after party began with food being laid on in the café area upstairs while the downstairs roped room was being transformed into a lecture hall, ready for the main attraction of the evening, a talk by Andy Kirkpatrick. Those lucky enough to get tickets for his hour long talk also got to see a new 30 min trailer of Alistair Lee's new film on Leo Holdings new mega route, The Prophet on El Cap along with Jack Griffin's talk on his latest project, swimming the channel for charity in a relay race with similar mad, Speedo wearing people. It looked freezing!! After Andy's talk the DJ started in the café area with the whole floor having more of a club feel than a climbing wall, were party goers danced well into Sunday morning.

Slender Films were on hand again to film the event. Check it out.

The SIBL would like to thank Audrey Seguy and her team at The Castle including head route setter Mike Langley for all their hard work, ensuring the day was great success. SIBL would also like to thank Metalious and Evolv who sponsored the round and supplied the brilliant prizes.

Check out the SIBL website for the full results.

Barnaby Ventham grabs the finishing hold on problem 17  © Nick Pope/ SIBL
Barnaby Ventham grabs the finishing hold on problem 17
© Nick Pope/ SIBL

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