British Indoor Climbing
Championships 2004 - Round 2

The Team (left to right)
Nathan Kemp, Tony Musselbrook,
Matt Cousins, Callum Harris, Joel Charley

Report
When driving back from Liverpool, it was pretty clear to everyone that, despite all the other climbers being so friendly, the Dane Court rankings had been affected by the intimidating atmosphere. So after the extreme case of nerves (times five) suffered at round one, four weeks ago, I was relieved to see that our BICC team was rather more relaxed this time round.

On the journey to the North East, Tony unleashed "the most difficult puzzle in the world" on the poor unsuspecting occupants of the car. It was (or should I say is?) difficult and it made our heads hurt; so we gave up. In any case, we had arrived at the Angel of the North next to the A1 near Newcastle and it needed climbing all over.

With Nathan navigating we quickly found our way to Sunderland and went looking for the comp venue. It wasn't difficult to find; a massive shed-like structure on the river bank. Not surprisingly the building was a little over 23 metres high to house Europe's tallest wall. I left the boys outside and went in to see if they had any refreshment facilities for the next day. I did ask if our team could have a glimpse of the wall (just to prepare them for its phenomenal bigness) but, as I expected, the route setters said no.

We retired to the luxury of the Travelodge in the centre of Sunderland and later went on a walk-about to find an eating place. Actually; I walked around half a mile and the team 'free-ran' about six miles.
After some food we walked the few hundred yards back to the hotel discovering, on the way, that there was a "strip-club" (Callum's description) on the ground floor. The boys made plans to visit the venue later in the evening; plans which I am not sure they carried out.

Breakfast at McDonald's and then straight to the wall.
Yes the team were awe-struck - for a good ten seconds. Then they discovered that only two routes reached the full 23 metres and both of their qualifiers were nearer Westway height.
Joel's dad and two brothers turned up and there were also plenty of other familiar faces so the wait before the competition seemed very short.

Zippy demonstrated the first qualifier and little Peter Whittaker had to go first. He topped out to well-deserved applause after a slow but steady and careful ascent. This set the pattern for all the successful attempts on the route. Our team climbed in a cluster about half way down the order. They all climbed well with Tony impressing the rest of the field by topping out after looking strong on a controlled ascent.
Matt took a big lob after forgetting his sequence and failing to reach a clip. With the exception of Joel (who appeared to climb in slow motion and paid the price) everyone improved on their performance from round one.

The second qualifier was demonstrated by Ian Vickers. This, it appears, is a sign that the route is rather hard; just like Mr Vickers himself. This time, only Tom Bolger reached the top with all the rest dropping off the overhanging corner after running out of steam or not reaching the next hold (this route was the Senior Men's first qualifier).

There was an unreasonably long wait for the list of qualifiers. So long, in fact, that Tony assumed he had not qualified and started bouldering some hard stuff. When Graeme (organiser) came and found me he had that "please don't hit me" look on his face. He explained that he had (foolishly) assumed that the usual bunch would qualify and had delayed entering the scores into the computer. Of course, when he did, he realised that Tony was in the final and should have been told fifteen minutes earlier. The rest of the finalists had been watching the Senior Females on their second qualifier which was to be the boy's final route. Tony spent a nervous ten minutes watching the women on the route; whilst massaging his forearms trying to get some feeling back after his bouldering excesses. The call went out for the boys to go into isolation and Tony disappeared into the weird green tent construction.

Just twenty minutes later he was back out and climbing. Having qualified in eighth place he climbed first. Getting to a point where both his reach and strength were at their limit, Tony dived and went for the maximum score before dropping off. He wasn't the only one.

We drove south to Barnsley where we were to stay the night. We watched the video and pictures of the day's competition and had an interesting conversation about what time we would leave in the morning. Matt was dead keen on 7:00am; much to the horror of the other four. Matt was out-voted and we settled on 7:30am

7:30am. Joel and Nathan were ready and merely needed surgical removal from the TV. Tony, Callum and, yes, Matt were still dead to the world. Fifteen minutes late, we went for breakfast (a difficult challenge when you've only been awake for ten minutes).

By 9:30am we were being blown about in the lay-by below Stanage Popular. This turned out to be a good choice of venue. By the time we had walked the few hundred yards to the foot of the crag, we were in virtually still air being warmed by the sun. Nevertheless, the rock was ice cold from the overnight frost and belaying from the top was a case of find shelter or get hypothermia.
Still; everyone climbed well with Nathan doing his first HVS, Callum his first E1 and Tony his first E3. Later on the snow made Matt's HVS/VDiff crossover route into an E6 (honest).

Awful journey back taking a good hour longer than predicted. I'm so glad we're flying to Edinburgh.

Mr A