A 5th Place in Edinburgh and more...

After a week of revision and exams, my dad, Jim Pope and I flew up to Edinburgh for the first lead EYC of the season.  'Hellos' and 'How are you?s' were said and dinner was eaten. It was finally time to go to bed.

Route 1 - Sandy Carr

I woke up psyched and was eager to get to the wall early to check out my routes. I was climbing early so there was not much time to relax. Route 1 was a sketchy orange route with not so good holds on the old comp wall. The crux of this for a lot of people was either the roof at the top or clipping the chains off an awkward volume with a LOT of rope drag. Route 2 was a red route on the left arête of the hanger wall. It was long with mostly positive holds and a pumpy roof section with a few awkward clips.

Route 1 - Samdy Carr

I was up on Route 2 first out of the two and as the Junior female and Youth A female categories were put together, I was out 7th. I like going out early and 6th is my favourite starting position: not too early so that you haven't seen enough people on it but early enough so that the conditions are good and you aren't waiting around for ages. So 7th was good. I was really happy that I topped this route because it relieved some of the pressure - Youth A is a category in which anyone can win - you can put the names of the strongest in a hat and randomly select the winner! Next up was Route 1 which definitely was NOT my style! I was glad I was up later on this one as it meant that I could watch some of the juniors and other strong climbers and learn from their beta for the tricky top section. I found this route difficult but I was pleased to have got to the top volume/last hold.

Final Route - Sandy Carr

It was a nice early finish so the team sat together outside in the sun and relaxed. It was really nice outside and I even got a tan - yes! A tan in Scotland!! The afternoon was dedicated to the speed, in which 3 British athletes were competiting: Alexander Bosi and Orrin Coley for Junior Males and Pete Dawson for Youth B (Pete only stepped in on the day so that the Youth B boys competition could run - effort Pete!!). All 3 did really well and made it to the finals the next day.

In the lead team we had some impressive results and some close ones - especially by Pete Dawson and Jim Pope who came 11th and 14th respectively in the Youth B males. However, myself, William Bosi and Buster Martin made the finals. Bosi had an amazing qualification in 1st, and Buster in 9th making his first EYC final.

Unfortunately, the night before/morning of the finals wasn't the best night I'd ever had. I was ill and sick 3 times due to food poisoning. I eventually settled into bed at 5am dreading my 6.30am alarm! When I woke up I felt horrible and was not psyched to climb - my stomach was in so much pain and I felt like I was going to throw up. I skipped breakfast and headed into isolation clutching my stomach. Isolation was not so much fun for me as the threat of being sick every time I pulled on only allowed me to do the bare minimum of a couple traverses to warm up and hope for the best in the holding area with a hand warmer.

Final Route - Sandy Carr

Although I was feeling sick before, everything was replaced by adrenaline when I stepped on the wall. I surprised myself on this route and climbed high up, mid way into the roof and into 1st place. What surprised me even more was that I held this position until the last 4 climbers who had all topped both of the qualifiers came out to climb.  3 of those climbers topped the final route and the 4th came of a couple holds before - I was ecstatic with my 5th place!

Overall it was an interesting weekend and a good learning experience - now I think I will try and stick to foods like pasta before a comp! Big congratulations are in order to William Bosi for his 2nd place which I'm sure will definitely not be the last podium we see Bosi on! Next time it'll be the top step!!

Where I fell off! Sandy Carr

Thanks to Ian and Rob Russell for all their support over the weekend and especially in isolation. Now the team looks forwards to the European Youth Championships in Imst, Austria in July - I'm hoping for some more good results!! But for now it's back to training hard.

Thanks for reading - I know it's been a long one!