St Davids Day saw round 2 of "The Ruckus" come to Dynamic rock and it was great fun! After the success of round 1 no-one at the centre knew what to expect. Would we see the return of the 50 climbers that packed out our first round, and could they cope with the wild new volumes that now decorate our bouldering room?
Preparing for the comp
Saturday we closed the bouldering wall and went about setting 30 problems that would hopefully delight and frustrate climbers throughout Sunday. On the morning of the competition young climbers started turning up early ready for the 11.00 o'clock under 18's start time, and they came out fighting. First to impress was a very keen and very good Owen Jones who set about the problems with vigour and dispatching many with ease, a name for the future I would guess!
Owen Jones Climbing brilliantly in the junior category
The Juniors would battle it out for the next 4hrs and would delight many with there no nonsense approach to the problems, if they could not reach - they would jump, if it was hard they would simply pull harder, but most of all it was their ability to work together and find solutions to hard boulder problems that, considering their height (some climbers in the 18 and under category are as Young as 9 years of age) is truly inspiring.
Morgan Preece storming to victory!
The Adult event started at 12.00 and would see a wide range of climbers enjoy a great afternoon of bouldering. The new layout of 30 problems in 3 hrs would again prove popular with climbers allowing strategy to play a small part in events as well as brawn. As time past by power reserves started to faulter and only the strong would be able to power through to the finish.
In the female event it was to be extremely close with 7pts separating the top 3 positions. It was Jacky Tyrie who after 3hrs of hard graft would just pip Donna and Catrin to the post.
Jacky "feeling the Pinch" to win the female event.
The Male event was to see another fitting climax with James Bacon climbing well along with Simon Robinson to gain high scores. It was Paul Walters, however who stole the show with some fantastic technique and some incredible strong shoulders to dispatch many of the toughest problems but maybe two comps in two days (he came a brilliant 2nd in Bristol on Saturday) was just a little too much or maybe when your as strong a sJon Freeman you can pull victory out from under anyones feet! By the narrowest of margins, 2pts, Jon shook his way past Paul to win on the day.
Paul putting in a brilliant performance.
The Scores are tight and the final round is set to see some twists and turns before we know who will be the eventual champions, so come along on 29th March; it is all set to be a cracker!
A few points to bear in mind........
It will be your two highest scores out of the three rounds that will determine your final score!
Under 18s can start climbing at 11.00
18 and overs can start at 12.00
All climbing will be finished at 15.00 and in the event of an overall tie there will be a final test of bouldering prowess!
Happy Climbing
simon
