Round 3 - Report

The Climb, Amersham, 14 January 2001
Now, this is going to be a little difficult. Writing a report on a competition, most of which I didn't actually witness!
I did see the first and last twenty minutes of competition, the Head-to-Head and prize-giving but there was a four-hour gap between 12:00 and 4:00 when I was at High Wycombe Hospital!
Things were going so smoothly. The competition had kicked off just after eleven and all of our competitors were looking well organised. Mr Gore, Mr Walters and Mr Watkins were getting into the swing of judging duties. I was thinking about getting my camera out to start recording the activities when a noticed a Dane Court T-Shirt high up on the wall; almost at the ceiling. Philip Maringer was attempting one of the tallest routes set for the competition and had reached the penultimate hold. His lack of reach was clearly going to cause him difficulties on the last move. He launched himself at the final hold - missed and very nearly fell off; just managing to keep a grip on the large hold with his lower hand. A forest of spotters had collected at the base of the route and sundry judges and competitors were hurriedly cleared from the area. Philip took another lunge at the top and missed again by millimetres. This time he could not hang on and fell awkwardly through the air until he made contact with the wall about ten feet below. He bounced another five feet down onto the thick mats and cried out in response to the extreme and sudden pain.
It was quickly decided that he shouldn't be moved and an ambulance was called.

I followed the ambulance to High Wycombe A & E and the ensuing three hours were occupied with a series of long waits between brief visits from the doctor and short trips along the corridor to X-ray. Philip was good natured throughout (particularly when the doctor decided he needed a dose of morphine to deaden the pain!).

Philip was diagnosed as suffering from a bruised bum and we returned to Amersham with about half an hour of competition time remaining. It appeared that most of our competitors had tried all the climbs and some had even handed in their cards. As in previous rounds, this was an exciting time filled with rumours of 'Dark Horse' local competitors who new the wall so well that they were bound to steal all the glory. I was reasonably confident that our better climbers were strong enough to hold on to top placings.

The results were very pleasing; even when the reduced field was taken into consideration:
Richard Sharpe had an excellent round; at last beating James Fogden (and by no small margin). He came seventeenth and now lies twenty first in the 'big boys' league.

Joe Cook improved his performance by several places achieving tenth.
Scott Simmonds and Stuart Walters also won places in the top ten.
Mikey Evans impressed, gaining fourth place.
Mark Watkins managed third place despite illness.
Tom Gore came in first with a substantial lead.
The overall league scores show our pupils to be in an excellent position occupying four of the top five places with Tom, Mark and Scott lying first, second and third respectively.

On a lighter note; Philip was awarded a spot prize for performing such a spectacular fall and Joe Cook received a similar prize for his marathon 20 minute attempt at the same climb!

Round four is at The Castle in North London. This will be a crucial point in the competition. Tom and Mark are still separated by less than 30 points. I predict that the gap will narrow; and there is still one more round after that!

PS: The ClimbUK website has a report on this round.