Dave Binney, Head Coach of the British Junior Climbing Team, reports on the Team’s performance at the European Youth Series competition in Wuppertal, Germany.

Wuppertal, situated in the narrow Wupper valley and one of Germany’s greenest cities, supplied a picturesque backdrop for the second European Youth Series (EYS) climbing competition of 2008, held on the weekend of 21-22 June.

Better late than never
The compact and bijou nearby airport of Dortmund was to be our gateway into Germany, but delays due to ‘technical difficulties’ at Luton combined with night flying restrictions at Dortmund meant an unscheduled diversion to Munster, a bus journey and an arrival at our hotel at 4am – not an auspicious start. However, past experience and the forward planning of team manager Tony Powell meant we had arrived on Friday, not Saturday. A long lie-in and a gentle exploration of the city riding the Schwebebahn, a 13km, one hundred year old monorail (the oldest in the world), followed by dinner, were all that was required for the team to recover, although I can’t say the same for the support crew, myself and Julia Bodle!

Saturday - Qualifiers
Saturday was wet, but a good temperature. After a full night's rest and a typical German breakfast to set us up for the day we were raring to go, and so were the other 280 plus competitors. The wall was Ratho-esque, overhanging about 5 meters and flat angled panels. Route setting was mint and the qualifying routes looked solid and technical. Jonathan Stocking in Youth B category (14-15 yrs), in his third EYS was to climb first after the demonstration – bad luck! Quelling his nerves he looked determined. He powered his way coolly up the wall making it look easy, wobbled a bit over the roof but finished near the top. After another 45 climbers, he would only be beaten by one: Adam Ondra from the Czech Republic. His second qualifier, which had been the Youth A male (15-16 yrs) first qualifier looked technical, with many falling off at the second and third clips. The route went up an overhanging arête and groove, then an overhanging traverse to a more straightforward head wall. Four other climbers joined him in reaching the top and he qualified overall in 2nd place – BRING IT ON!

Shauna Coxsey looked her usual smooth self on both her routes. The first, a tricky arête which she almost topped, the second a burly overhang, to qualify in 8th. Natalie Berry made a respectable 13th in qualifying. Having only just finished her Scottish Highers, Natalie was off her usual pace, but now the exams are over and she has more time to train watch this space. Kitty Wallace, another newcomer to EYS, who finished 10th in Prague this year, eased her way up the routes but found them less to her liking, finishing in 16th place, still a good result. James Garden was pleased with his 22nd place in the qualifiers, an improvement on Prague where he finished 26th. He showed good technique dealing with the early cruxes with confident ease but was off the pace in terms of his fitness, back to forearm training for you fella. His performance on the second route was particularly good and he received a cheer from his teammates when he reached his goal: an orange blob, two-thirds up the route.

So Jonathan and Shauna had made it through to the finals.

Sunday – Finals Day
A bright morning greeted us on Sunday, and I had Shauna and Jonny in isolation in plenty of time. The finals are onsight so all finalists have to be in the warmup area (which is cordoned off from the wall) before 8.30am. By 9.30am Shauna had been called out, with Jonny expected to climb about 10am. As I stay in isolation until our last competitor goes to climb I did not see Shauna climb but by all accounts she climbed her usual graceful self, making the earlier girls look like punters. At half height she made one small technical error in choosing the wrong pocket of two, was unable to reset before her foot unceremoniously popped and she was off, but giving her a 6th overall.

Jonny, second to last to climb strode out for battle. He set off dismissing the first roof with contempt, and powered his way up, up and up. Bloody hell we thought, the boy’s on fire. The crowd getting more vocal as he neared the previous competitor’s high point at two-thirds height just past the third roof. A crucial left foothold just under the roof was marked by the route setter with a chalk line. Jonny spotted it immediately, pounced and followed it with a couple of hand moves, right then left. Oh no, wrong sequence, as he moved up with his left to the next hand hold he took his foot off the left hold under the roof, clipped the quickdraw, but realising he was wrong handed was unable to reset as he’d lost the left foothold. With gritty determination he was finally overcome with fatigue, jumped and slapped for the next hold just below the previous competitor, Jonny coming an awesome 3rd overall.

A banging trip had by all, well done. Roll on Sydney in late August for the World Junior Championships.

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