The first round of the SIBL was bound to be interesting; whether that was because I was left to organise it and we were interested to see if we would get there on time, or at all; or because of the tight competition for top place was uncertain. In the end, however, the travel arrangements came together and we arrived at Redhill with plenty of time to spare.

This time was spent looking at the routes, warming up and changing into climbing shoes for most of the team. Some, however, could not resist the temptation of the brand new hackysacks I had bought the day before, and spent the time playing 'Ultimate HackySack' in the car park. Phil Maringer and I impressed the rest of the team with a currently unbeaten thirty-two hacky's between us.

The competition eventually started and The team were spread out in their choice of first routes, with some members choosing to begin with the easier routes to warm up, while the others decided to go for the more challenging problems while they were fresh. The competition ran smoothly and it was obvious that the top places would be close. This was mainly due to the fact that the amount of truly challenging routes were limited, meaning that there were only a few routes that would really open up the top few spaces. I ended up messing up slightly on a very large reach problem that for some reason just wouldn't go, which unfortunately set me back from the leaders. Russ however had a better strategy and rested for a very long time before trying these harder problems. In the end, this worked out best and Russ flashed every problem seemingly easily.

The end result put Russ in first place, and me in fifth. This was disappointing but it meant I got to climb in the head to head, which this year does not include the top three climbers. Mikey also impressed everyone by climbing his way into the head to head, leaving us the only two Dane Court members in a head to head full of Westway climbers. Unfortunately, an injury half way pulled Mikey off the wall, placing him fifth in the head to head. A close run between me and Tom Arnold resulted in a first place for me, and a headtorch as my prize! Russ' first place overall gained him some quickdraws and a nice hat. The whole team climbed very well today, with Chris Powell and Phil Maringer coming close to head to head placements, and Sam Syvret climbing strongly all day long.

In the mens, Tom Gore finished eighth overall, which is very impressive. Unfortunately he made a fatal error on one problem which set him back six places! With only ten points separating him fro second place, the rest of the league is looking promising!

Joe Cook

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