Canada Hosts World Youth Climbing Championships
This year, Canada hosted the first World Youth Climbing Championships ( wycc) in North America. The Boulders Climbing Gym, located north of Victor ia, in Central Saanich, welcomed over 450 athletes from 32 countr ies to the world’s biggest annual climbing competition. And what a competition it was.
The Boulders Climbing Gym is a not-for-profit society with over 1,208 square metres of climbing space. Although completely enclosed, it can be made to feel like you are climbing outside when the huge door is opened, flooding the wall with natural light and excellent viewing from the adjacent fields. In the middle of a far ming community, the sight of an illuminated climbing wall on a darkened, starry night was truly awesome.
Team Canada came into this competition with high expectations. Buoyed by the fact they would be climbing on a wall they were very familiar with due to the numerous competitions and training camps held at the Boulders recently, and that the team was the deepest ever, there were reasonable expectations that a Canadian or two would qualify for the lead finals for the first time in six years. Also, there was a buzz about how our speed climbers would do: five of our eight speed climbers call the Boulders their home gym, which is the only gym in Canada that has the official 15- metre speed course. Getting a Canadian past qualifiers and into the round of 16 for the first since the official speed course was certified by the ifsc seemed like a very real possibility. Would home field work to the advantage of the Canadians, or would the pressure of perfor ming in front of the home crowd be too much?
In the end, the team asserted themselves incredibly showing the rest of the world that Canada is an up and coming country in competition climbing. A national record was set when nine Canadians made the lead semifinals, eclipsing the record of seven semifinalists when the wycc was hosted by Ecuador in 2007. This number could have been even greater as three Canadians finished 27th, after qualifiers, just missing the cut-off. Although no semifinalist was able to make finals (top eight climbers), every athlete moved up from their starting position in the semifinals, which is a huge accomplishment. We did have our first top- 10 climber when Iyma Lamarche in Junior Girls finished in tenth. Almost cracking the top10 was Lucas Uchida, who finished 11, in the Youth B Boys category. Lamarche and Uchida both train out of Boulderz in Toronto, so a huge showing for that club team. The biggest mover, however, was Alyssa Weber in Junior Girls, moving from the 23 place at the start of semifinals to finish in 14, a whopping nine places higher.
Other semifinal results include: Eva Thompson, Youth B Girls: 23; Mika Hosoi, Youth B Girls: 25; Kyle Murdoch, Youth B Boys: 21; Elise Sethna, Junior Girls: 20; Elan Jonas-McRae, Junior Boys: 14; and, Ryder Hoy, Junior Boys: 24.
The third day for the competition was for the speed competition. Eight Canadians had met the national standard to make the team and with time spent dur ing the summer on the new speed holds, hopes for our first climbers in the round of 16 were more than realistic. Also, could a new Canadian speed record happen? In training earlier that week, Robert Stewart-Patterson set a time of 8.006 seconds, which would have smashed his previous record if this was dur ing a competition.
In speed competitions, each athlete gets two chances to put up their best time in qualifiers with the top 16 times ranked from one to sixteen. In the next round, climbers are paired with first versus 16, second versus 15, and so on. The winner moves on to the next round where they are re-ranked from one to eight dependent on their time in the round of 16. This occurs again after the round of eight until we get to the semifinals. Here, the winner of the first versus fourth and second versus third races move to the ‘big final’ and a chance to race for the gold medal while the losers move to the ‘small final’ and a chance to race for the bronze medal.
Canada’s goal of having an athlete get past the qualifiers were realized and more: four Canadians made it to the round of 16, with another climber in 17. More importantly, six of the eight climbers set personal bests at the event with both the male and female Canadian records falling. Our top result was Alison Stewart-Patterson, who finished 11 in the Junior Girls category. She also set a new Canadian female record with a time of 13.37 seconds. Elena Moss, in Youth B Girls, finished in 13, and set a personal best with a time of 16.91 seconds. Robert StewartPatterson, in Junior Boys, was trying to break that magical eight-second mark and came close with a time of 8.06 seconds in qualifiers, it smashed his previous national record; he ended up finishing 14. Francis Bilodeau, also of Junior Boys, wound up with the better time in the round of 16 and finished 12 with a time of 8.30 seconds.
The competition was amazingly organized – the staff and volunteers of the Boulders Climbing Gym can be very proud of their efforts. As for Team Canada, its back to the home gyms for a little bit of rest before we start the next season. This year’s target: the wycc to be held in New Caledonia in August of 2014. There will be time to worry about that later. Congratulations to everyone one on Team Canada, it was a job well done.