It was a mental week filled with 17 hour long setting shifts streaming into the early hours of the morning. I was mainly working with Buz whilst Gary and Neil worked together to set their respective routes. Paul was on his own for the week and focused his efforts entirely on the Male Junior Final, a gnarly 8b+ on the new comp wall.

 

Buz and I had a fun week setting (as it always is when we work together). We set three routes as a team and Buz managed an extra when I had to take a day off to visit my Dad in hospital (another added bit of stress to the week when my Dad was hospitalized after he caught pneumonia).

 

Both Buz and I were happy with the routes we set both in quality and their performance in the event. For any competitors reading this, Buz and I set:

 

Youth B Girls Qualifier: Black/Orange 7c (New Comp Wall)

Youth B Girls Qualifier: Yellow 7c (Old Comp Wall)

Youth B Boys Qualifier: Green 8a (Old Comp Wall)

Youth B Boys Final + Junior Girls Final: Yellow 8b (New Comp Wall)

 

The two girls qualifiers worked excellent and provided a perfect contrast to each other, the black/orange being steep, burly and powerful whilst the yellow being vertical to slightly overhung most of the way on small edges, balancy moves and very sequency beta. What was interesting whilst watching two young British superstars climbing them was how they provided the perfect all-round challenge to the kids. Young Molly Thompson-Smith did very well by topping the steep orange/black 7c which suited her style but unfortunately fell halfway on the Yellow whereas Tara Hayes topped the yellow and fell on the orange/black. The two contrasting styles challenged different kids in different ways, exactly what we want to do in a competition i.e. who is the best all round, not simply who is the best in one style.

 

The Youth Boys found our 8a really tricky and only saw one top in the whole event! This category for me was the most exciting as I had Angus Davidson and William Bosi competing in it (two boys I coach). Angus did amazingly well for his first international event taking 17^th place overall. Of course he wasn’t happy with this but it’s all about getting the experience in Youth B for building up in later competitions.

 

William Bosi totally blew everyone away with an outstanding performance in the same category placing 6^th place overall. It was exciting watching him on the final Buz and I had set for their category. I had no idea how he would do on the Yellow 8b. It was super sustained with a few powerful moves thrown in and little to no rest. Watching him in the final though was exhilarating to say the least. He just kept going, higher and higher, until he had surpassed my expectations and continued firing upwards to the top. He looked so comfortable moving through each section I honestly thought he would just top it! In the final roof he rested and just before moving to the next hold his foot popped and that was the end. It was frustrating seeing that but equally exciting to see how well he did in his first European. It’s also worth mentioning that he was the youngest in the category (1997-1998) being born 27^th December 1998. The top guys were a year or two older than him.

 

Since Edinburgh EYS, Angus, William and I have been training hard together and they have returned from yet another EYS, this time in Voiron, France. They did fantastically well there again with 21^st and 18^th respectively, a good ranking for their first international away from home.

 

Edinburgh Coaching

 

So away from international events for now, I’ve been continuing my work with local kids, regular 1:1’s and organizing events here and there. The YCS final is coming up in the next couple of weeks and I have a large contingent of my local 1:1’s gunning for this. Sam Harland-Sendra (11) and Leo-Harland-Sendra (7) are two brothers I coach on a weekly basis who have both been training hard recently. Sam has been knocking down 7a+ very regularly with a few onsights at this grade as well as a lot 2^nd or 3^rdgo. Leo on the other hand, his training is a little less intensive being only 7, but his commitment isn’t any less.

He has taken out his first 6c+ onsight which he was delighted with and in a recent YCS Prep Day event run by myself, Nat and Ross Kirkland, he demonstrated yet again why he is regional champ with a solid performance onsighting everything but one 6c route that he fell on the last move (he beat all but the top boys in the Youth D + C Category!).

 

Aberdeen Coaching

 

As you know I work a lot with kids from the north east city of Aberdeen as well. A week or so ago I headed up there for a massive day working with all the local beasts, specifically prepping them for the YCS Final which most of them will be competing in. I was also lucky enough to have the current Scottish Boulder Champion Scott Keirr assisting me for the whole day. I have been working with Scott on his own performance over the last year as an additional assistant to his climbing alongside John Brown (local boulder beast and coach). One thing Scott has been talking about is getting into coaching, so I have taken him on as my apprentice coach to give him some experience. He is mega keen to develop his coaching abilities as well as his climbing which I am mega psyched about, this means Scotland will have another top coach to work with our kids.

 

All the Aberdeen lot were on form and seeing their new wall built by Scott Muir at Dream Walls, NO WONDER! They now have a fantastic new training wall which should help them massively to build on their already strong climbing abilities.

 

Three kids in particular that I have seen massive gains from over the last year are Rory Cargill, Rebecca Kinghorn and Ben Findlay. Rory is a training animal and always gives 110% to everything which as we all know pays massive dividends. Rory competed in the Youth Colors at Imst a few weeks ago which although it isn’t officially a European Cup Round, it might as well be called that for Youth C and below. He placed an amazing 17^th overall but apparently on the second day was 12^th.

 

Rebecca is a total machine and she will do amazing in whatever she goes for. She is Scottish Bouldering Champion as of the Scottish Bouldering Championships held at TCA a few weekends ago and is competing in the YCS Final next week. We had a session together at EICA a week ago where she was looking solid on 7a/+.

 

Ben Findlay is younger still than these two being in Youth C. Ben has transformed into his own climber over the last six months. He used to be just your everyday kid climber who comes in, does a few routes then leaves. Now he comes in with a plan, he’s focused and he knows what he’s aiming for. The best thing about it is you can see he wants to improve, but he also loves the whole process of getting better and always pushes himself hard. He came out to Spain with us and despite never having been on a 7a in his life, went for it and learned a lot from the experience.

 

My Own Training

 

Enough about others, more about me!!! My own training has been going well. After Spain I decided to lower the volume slightly and up the intensity. I’m doing a fair bit of fingerboard and finger strength specific bouldering but mainly I am hitting it hard on circuits with a few routes in and around them. I’ve ticked all the routes in Ratho apart from two 8b’s and an 8b+ and one of the 8b’s I am saving for an onsight attempt later on in the month. I did Gary’s 8b from the comp 2^nd go and got high on the onsight too which I was pretty happy with – it felt quite easy actually, you can rest a lot on it because the holds are all positive, the crux section is the ending sequence where I fell on the onsight (red volume), it’s just a bit sequency. Nat fell on the last moves of it the other day too so if she does it then she will have the second ascent :P I do get that psyched for indoor routes!

 

I am feeling fit at the moment and pretty strong so hopefully it will transfer onto rock when I hit up Yorkshire over the coming months. I was hoping to go to France this summer but with all my work currently I might have to hold out until next year. I do have Kalymnos in October and I am contemplating going for 2 weeks before coaching to try and tick an 8c+ I like the look of there, we will see :P

 

Anyway, I promise to keep things more up to date from now on – I have a few videos to post soon too so stay tuned!

 

ROBZ OUT