UKC

Team GB achieved perhaps the best-ever all-round results, with three climbers in the semi-finals. William Bosi narrowly missed out on finals in 9th place, while Jim Pope and Molly Thompson-Smith both placed 16th.

Back in Leeds 1989 we had 4 male finalists; Jerry Moffat 1st, Simon Nadin 3rd, Mark Leach and Ian Vincent, 6 th and 8th if I can recall correctly, whilst it is fantastic to see a resurgeance of Lead with the excellent results of Will, Molly and Jim and it has taken awhile, don’t forget the history.

Thanks Ian. Duly amended to 'one of their best ever results.' 

I don't remember Mark being in the final but I have the results somewhere so I might have a look later.

Well firstly it's easier to get more athletes through on home comp. But also things were very different back then with only a small number of countries competing, or even sport climbing, seriously. Today the pool of talent is so much bigger and standards that much higher.

Overall Team GB seem to be doing really well this year what with Nathan Philips making the final in the World Championships too.

I just hope the BMC gets behind them more now and sends them out to China for the final two rounds. It seems clear the most successful countries (Slovenia, Japan, Austria) are also the ones that give the most support to their athletes. We have the talent. I think the BMC needs to rise to the occasion and dish out a bit more in the way of support for the team now.