National Championship - The Roxx, Christchurch

On Friday 5 August, Mum and I flew down to Christchurch to compete in the National Champs. On Tuesday 9 August I will be leaving NZ from Christchurch and flying to Europe to compete in the IFSC Climbing World Youth Championship in Imst, Austria. You can follow the team's progress on our video blog.

Sat 6 Aug: Comp Day 1

My Youth A first qualifier wasn't too hard and I topped out along with two others.

I found it hard to find a good sequence on the speed routes. Daniel Krippner and I have been consistently in the top two for Open Speed all year but this time I was coming third, Daniel fourth, and Masters competitor Rich Morgan was coming first. In Youth A I did better and was coming first.

In the Open qualification, I was close to topping the first climb, topped the second one and was second going into the final.

In isolation I could guess by the cheering that the guy before me had topped out. When I got to the end of the roof, I slipped off a big hold after making a difficult clip. The climber after me topped out and I came third.

Sun 7 Aug: Comp Day 2

On my Youth A second qualifier, I fell off on a big move and was third going into the final. On the final, I came second.

The Speed finals were on different routes to the qualifiers but the Open Male results stayed the same. In the Youth A I was Speed Champ.


Written by Josiah; posted by Lisia.

NZ Team Trials and Froggatt Edge

Mon 9 May: Trials

We were split into two groups, boys and girls. Us boys worked on one route and then performed on that route and the girls did the same on another route. Then we swapped routes and had a flash attempt. I did all right on the first route and well on the second route.

A week later we received an email stating that I had made the team :).

Tue 10 May: Froggatt

Mum and I planned to go and climb at Waipapa, but when we got there a sign said the track was closed so we went to Froggatt and climbed there instead. I was tired after the comp and trials so I did easier climbs:

Streetwise (19), onsight, warm up
Sun Strike (20), onsight
Safety Buffalo (24), second go
Terror Incognito (18), onsight, warm down

Mum had a good day and she did these climbs:

E-Grade Get a Real Grading System (15)
Shane in the Red Balloon (18), onsight
Streetwise (19), flash
Bonne Anne (16), onsight, warm down

Photos

Here are some photos I took on the trip: our apartment in Switzerland, a view from the train going to Austria, and Wiz climbing in the competition.

World Youth Champs comp

27 August

Comp Day 1

We caught a bus to the wall. Me, Damon and James were early, because I was first up and Damon second, but they changed the order later and I was 53rd up. My number was 393.

"Everybody climbed well," that's what James said, but my climb wasn't so good in my opinion; I cut loose and swung off because I didn't think. In the afternoon we, all the teams, went on a parade across town from the climbing wall to the speed wall.


28 August

Comp Day 2

We went to the wall again and climbed. My second climb was better than my first. In the afternoon to evening we did speeds. There were two different routes on the speed wall: one was the official speed route with extra speed holds added in and the other route was new. My grade was the last grade to do speeds and it was lots of fun.


29 August

We went to the wall and watched the semi finals, and I bought some climbing holds. Then we went around shopping and after that we were given five Euros each for dinner. I bought some carrots, a cucumber and a can of fruit salad. I ate some of the carrots and ate the cucumber, but I couldn't open the fruit salad so I had to eat it the next day. After dinner we watched the finals and some of us swapped tops with other climbers, but nobody I ask wanted to or could swap :(

Imst to Valence

21 August

We, Youth B, made lunch for the Youth A's and Claire, and then we went and watched the climbing in the IFSC Kletter Weltcup. The climbing was cool to watch and our guys climbed well.


22 August

Watched the semi-finals in the morning and the finals in the evening. I thought the presentation of the finalists was weird and it was fun to watch Adam Ondra top.


23 August

We went on a bush walk to a place where there was an alpine coster; you went up on a gondola thing and down on the luge track. Apart from slow people it was lots of fun.


24 August

We caught trains to Bern, Switzerland, and went climbing in the evening.


25 August

We took a train to Geneva, walked into France, and took a train to Valence.


26 August

We did lots of stuff and this is not in order:

We met the Australian and Equadorian teams and played frizby with them and Wiz's cousin Jamie. We went to Valence2, the mall, and then went to the supermarket to stock up. We also wrote our pre-comp plans and took photos of me and Wiz in dresses at the mall. This was so that James would give us pain au chocolat. I didn't get one though because I'm vegan.

Results

The 2009 Climbing World Youth Championship is nearly over, just speed climbing finals to go. Watching the live coverage, we saw quite a few of the New Zealanders climbing, including part of Josiah's second climb. We thought they all looked relaxed and focussed, climbing well. Emily and Sarah each topped their first climb! We haven't heard from Josiah how he found it all.

Difficulty and speed results for the New Zealand team are below. The difficulty category is their priority: they enter the speed competition just for fun and the extra experience.

Youth B Male (Under 16)

Difficulty: 73 competitors

Wiz 44th
Josiah 59th

Speed: 41 competitors

Josiah 34th
Wiz 36th

Youth B Female (Under 16)

Difficulty: 67 competitors

Emily 32nd
Irmak 48th
Charlotte 58th
Rowan 60th

Speed: 39 competitors

Emily 19th
Charlotte 31st
Irmak 32nd
Rowan fell

Youth A Male (Under 18)

Difficulty: 81 competitors

Mark 46th
Jesse 51st
Damon 60th

Speed: 47 competitors

Damon 30th
Mark 31st
Jesse 39th

Youth A Female (Under 18)

Difficulty: 69 competitors

Sarah 33rd
Amanda 49th
Olivia 52nd

Speed: 44 competitors

Olivia 39th
Amanda 43rd
Sarah fell

Junior Female (Under 20)

Difficulty: 45 competitors

Claire 38th

Speed: 27 competitors

Claire 20th

Videos

Below is video evidence that Josiah is alive and well in Switzerland (yay!). And eating sugar, enthusiastically, which surprised us: Josiah is usually highly mistrustful of sugar. This time, however, to earn a share of some leftover iceblocks, he was willing to ...




Day 7 of the Team Diary is also a video ...




For more videos from the team, visit Climbing NZ's You Tube page.

Team Diary

A Team Diary has been started at the Climbing NZ website and quotes of the day from the team are being posted to Climbing NZ's Facebook page.