Round 5 - Report

Mile End Climbing Wall, East London, 18 March 2001
The final round!
Our group had worked hard over the last five months.
Competing in the previous four rounds was really the culmination of much practice and training; certainly our strongest competitors had put in many hours on the school bouldering wall and trained in between times. The Dane Court Bouldering League had been underway since the beginning of January and served as an excellent rehearsal for our less experienced competitors.

Most of our pupils were excited by the prospect of testing their abilities on problems set by the famous Mr Dawes (even those who didn't know who he was!). Some were a little apprehensive about the sort of routes that would inevitably be set in the Monkey House.
Sure enough; most of the climbs were weird and wonderful. There was the one-handed dyno on an overhanging wall; the ten dead hangs (each worth one point plus one with bonus to keep the judges on their toes), The single-move semi-dyno to a layback crimp (you start talking like this when you go to too many bouldering competitions). Johnny Dawes is notorious for climbing routes requiring enormous reaches and odd gymnastic moves. This was evident in his route setting which, in turn had an affect on the scores of our smaller pupils. Nevertheless there were no real complaints and I got the impression that everybody appreciated the fun element of some of the routes.

We went into this round in a strong position and, I am very pleased to report that the trend was towards an improvement.
There were some one-off local entries that tried to steal the top spot from Tom Gore.....and failed!
Mark Watkins was forced into fourth place by the same locals and Scott Simmonds managed to hold on to seventh.
Russell Bates and Joe Cook were twelfth and thirteenth with only five points separating them (what's new?).
Most of our younger competitors improved on their previous performance (considering the unusual style of some of the climbs).

Of course, the really exciting news is the overall League result (see Results page).
Seven of the top ten places! Special mention must go to Tom, Mark and Scott for their persistent determination which was well rewarded with first, second and third place respectively. They received some great prizes watched by a clutch of admiring parents.

Finally; I think that my one lasting memory of this whole league will be watching the successful attempts by Richard Sharpe and Tom Gore on the long, tortuous problem in the Monkey House; Having just seen some strong 'Male Open' competitors fail on this powerful, extended roof problem; both boys completed the route gracefully and with calculated control in front of a dozen amazed and impressed onlookers.
They will go far; as long as they can climb all the way!

Mr Alderson

PS: The ClimbUK website has a brief report on this round and the whole league