British Indoor Climbing Championships
2005/2006 - Round 4. Report

By Callum Harris At half 6 in the morning Matt's phone started making some very strange noise which apparently was his alarm. According to him it was Nora Jones, Strange Transmissions. I think Nora is the name of his phone. Matt was rudely awoken by Tony with a people's elbow. That serves him right for having a stupidly named phone. We consumed breakfast of the Little Chef variety and then set off for the wall. One CD's worth of music later, we arrived and stepped out of the car and immediately froze due to a lack of warmth. Registration was highly amusing; Graeme thought that Matt was Joel and he wrote me down as Kevin Keegan despite my lack of hair. After dumping our stuff in small boxes we set about trying to identify our routes. Our assumptions were correct and we had the reds as our first qualifier and the blues as our second qualifier. The reds proved to be pretty straightforward and out of nine people only Richard Field fell. That meant final positions rested on the performances of the eight competitors on route two. During the gap between the two routes, we took the opportunity to watch and encourage the vets. Most impressive was 65 year old Angela Soper. Route two was somewhat harder than one and it showed. People fell from all different places but in the end two people drew for first and three people drew for third, meaning that the youth finalists were Tom Gore, Tony Musselbrook, Callum Harris, Joe Wilson and Adam Watson. Matt Cousins fell slightly lower and came 6th, just missing the final. Meanwhile Jemma Powell and Katie Whittaker were the only competitors in the female youths and hence they both made the final. After being stupid children in isolation (jumping through hoops and running along slabs) it was finally time for our final. I was out first and, feeling pretty confident, I stepped off the ground. All was good until the lip about half way up the climb. I eventually fell about three moves later and joined Matt on the mats to watch the other finalists. Next out was Adam and he fell one move before me, having got in a bit of a muddle at one of the clips. The third finalist was Tony and he cruised past my high point to fall off about three moves later. Joe Wilson then got a couple of moves further than Tony and this performance was matched by Tom, forcing a superfinal. The superfinal was the same as the final route but with a hold rotated. Joe this time did not get as far as before, but Tom confidently beat his own high point to fall only a few moves from the top and to huge cheers. Good effort Tom, finally Dane Court have a national champion (even if he has left now). All in all it was a very good competition and I think everyone involved had a great time. Dane Court competitors secured 4 of the top 6 places so obviously we are very pleased. Special mention must go to Martin Watson for his amusing, if slightly off-putting and annoying, commentary. Perhaps he should take a few singing lessons in future. Well done to everyone involved, especially the winners. Peace.