Fresh from his win at the European Youth Boulder Championships in Brixen, Italy, in September (UKC news), 14-year-old Toby Roberts picked up a silver medal in the Youth B category at the European Youth Lead Championships in Voronezh, Russia, last weekend.

Due to the long competition season, Toby had initially planned on skipping the event in Voronezh, but his success in Brixen spurred him on to compete in one more event this year. Toby travelled with his father, Tristian, as the GB Team's sole competitor. Tristian told UKC:

'Toby qualified for semi-finals in 1st, then in a 55-move semi-final dropped the last move to qualify for the final in 2nd. In the final, he topped the route and ended up finishing 2nd on countback to the semi-finals.

'Naturally he's pretty happy to finish the season with a 1st and 2nd at the two European Championship events!'

'It was also really good of GB Climbing's coach Ian Dunn to make the effort at late notice to get a visa sorted and travel out with us both,' Tristian added.

Toby's results are even more impressive given that he is only in his first year of the two-year Youth B age category (14/15).

On a global scale, Toby performed well at the World Youth Championships in Arco, Italy this summer, where he placed 15th in Boulder, 6th in Lead, 41st in Speed and 9th in the Combined standings.

In 2015, Toby finished 2nd in the Youth Color Climbing Festival in Imst, Austria. He has also redpointed 8b with an ascent of Revelations at Raven Tor at the age of 11 (UKC news) and became the youngest person to redpoint Raindogs 8a at the age of 10 in 2015.