Tiffany Melius on Women’s #1
The Tour De Bloc finals took place last night and what an exciting finish to a great event. The night began with the Women’s final and the competition looked fierce. Shannon Russell, a dark horse from Seattle dominated the field, completing all four problems and taking the top of the podium. The Men’s final ended with some high energy and high drama. Men’s problem #1 was a heinous crimp problem that first looked like no one would do until Jason Holowach crushed it on his first attempt with no hesitation. The problem was then completed by Jesse Warren, an American student attending Quest University in Squamish, BC and then, despite making an error in the sequence, flashed by North Van local, Simon Parton.
Matt Keays on Men’s #1
The drama would unfold from there, with both Jason and Simon flashing problem #2 and then both not completing problem #3. The night came down to problem #4, with Jason completing the problem in two tries and Simon waiting in the darkness. As Simon approached the problem, he threw his chalk bag on the mats and started up the green volumes. Making another beta mistake, Simon dug deep and somehow managed to stay on, fighting with all his might and eventually dynoing to last hold in absolute dramatic fashion. What a fantastic way to end the night!
Simon Parton on Men’s #4
A competition like this takes a lot of work to organize and plan. Hats off to the staff at The Hive who did a fantastic job. The event was well planned and the layout of the problems had a really nice flow for spectators. However, the night was not without its flaws. For the second year in a row, the setting crew began to remove the Women’s problems at the same time as the last two women were still climbing. At one point, Maria Celkova was climbing problem #4 and underneath her, a route setter was removing holds and putting on new ones while she climbed. Not only did this seem distracting and unfair for the competitors, it was also a distraction to the crowd and took away from the end of the Women’s event. Perhaps, an option would be to hold the raffle draw between the Women’s and Men’s problems to give keep the crowd interested and the route setters more time to work.
Here is the final results:
Women’s
Shannon Russell
Tiffany Melius
Sidney Trinidad
Men’s
Simon Parton
Jason Holowach
Jesse Warren
Special thanks to all the volunteers at the comp and people who made it happen. Also, a special thanks to Tour De Bloc and their title sponsor, Mountain Equipment Co-op. This is a great venue for the climbing community to cheer on those local climbers who are giving it their best. Stay tuned for Dec. 12th Tour De Bloc in Edmonton, AB!
