Jeremy Blumel’s take on the competition last weekend via the Squamish Chief.
The first organized climbing competition was held in 1985 in Bardonecchia, Italy. To test the climbers’ abilities, the route setters chipped routes into the limestone walls of the surrounding cliffs. And poof, thus was born the invented tool for measuring who is the best climber of the day by creating a route, right then and there, to be climbed. Things have come a long way since the cold chisels and the soft, limestone walls of Bardonecchia.
As the sun came up in Squamish on Saturday morning, the final organizing was well underway for Ground Up Climbing Centre’s first bouldering competition, SPF 2016. Routesetters, judges, coaches, junior competitors, parents and adult competitors all swarmed in. The event tagline was: “Stay safe from the sun. Come to an indoor bouldering comp,” and they weren’t wrong.
While the day was crystal clear and dry enough for the dedicated to climb dry stone outdoors, many chose instead to travel to Squamish, sample the new gym’s terrain and pit themselves against the fluid birch-sheeted overhangs and creative problems created by the setters. For those who have never watched a climbing competition or, for that matter, never climbed, I thought I’d explain how the day worked and why an indoor climbing competition can be such a powerful tool for motivating the masses.
SPF 2016 was a Sport Climbing BC-sanctioned bouldering event in which the various youth divisions as well as recreational, experienced, open and masters could all compete. Age and ability level divided the categories, with the youth divisions further divided down by age. All competitors started in a scramble format qualifier and had about two hours to climb as many boulder problems as possible, with each problem gaining them a certain amount of points depending on difficulty. The judges then took each climber’s top five highest scoring problems, tallied them and then ranked the contestants.
For the full article, please see the Squamish Chief website.
