Wow! Our first ever Divisional for Bouldering was at the Seattle Bouldering Project three weeks ago on January 14th and 15th. I say wow because there was some awesome climbing that weekend and I am still trying to process all of it. The best youth climbers from Washington, Alaska, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Northern California and Northern Nevada converged a mile from my house for 2 very cool days of climbing with National invites at stake.
I decided to go back to shooting video on my Flip camera instead of my iPhone so I do not have any pictures of Sidney climbing. Of course all of her climbs are on our youTube channel, Chasesidney13, so go watch them!
If you've read my previous posts, you'd know that Sidney's category, FYC, is especially tough in our division this year. Sidney, Melina, Cierra and Lia have high expectations to do very well at ABS Nationals this year so the main thing was to get an invite. Of course, that's not how they think as they all want to make the podium.
Saturday was qualifiers in which there were 3 routes per category. On Qualifier # 1, 21 girls flashed the route. On Qualifier # 2, it separated a little bit with 11 girls flashing the route and 2 girls making it on their 2nd attempt. The level of difficulty bumped up tremendously for Qualifier # 3 as only 3 girls flashed it and 1 girl made it on her 2nd try. Do you know who that 1 girl was? Sidney. I'm spoiled when I watch her climb because there is rarely any drama so it was a bit jarring to see her fall going to the finish move on her 1st attempt. It was preceded by a sequencing mistake that got her pumped before the finish but usually she always pulls it out. The 3 girls that flashed Qualifier # 3, of course, were Melina, Cierra and Lia. This put Sidney in the unfamiliar position of going into Finals in 4th place. I thought this was a great situation for her as it would put less pressure on her as the other 3 would be climbing after her in Finals. At the time, Sidney did not see it the same way I did as she was not a happy camper for a few hours after Qualifiers. I could tell she was burning up inside and could not wait for Finals to release some of her angst on the wall.
There were 3 routes for Finals on Sunday and all the girls were chomping at the bit to get out there. The route setters started separating right away on Final # 1, as only 5 of the 11 finalists flashed the route and they were Olivia Brumwell, Sidney, Melina, Cierra and Lia. Final # 2 held true to form as the same 5 girls were the only ones to make it with Olivia being the only one not to flash it. It all came down to Final # 3 as Sidney would need to out climb Melina, Cierra and Lia to finish in 1st as she was behind on countbacks to Qualifiers.
Final # 3 was very, very tough. It scored to 15 points and you needed a wide repertoire of moves to be able to bag it. Balance, slopers, aretes, crimps, power moves. Tough.
On Sidney's 1st attempt, she climbed strong and got to hold 10, which was the high point for the girls at that time. She tried to Dyno for the finish from there but was not close as that was the wrong beta because there were two holds that she missed on the wall around the arete.
On Sidney's 2nd attempt, she again scored to the 10 hold but this time did the right beta. Alas, she could not hang on to hold 11. Although she had done the right beta, she still had not seen the two holds around the arete. After falling, she walked out to look around the arete, saw them and then had the "I'm such an idiot" look on her face.
She regrouped and started her 3rd attempt with a minute left to climb. This time, she tweaked her beta at the top by eventually getting way out to the first hold on the outside wall before falling into the blue crimp with the left hand. Two moves later she was matching on the finish while the crowd roared with approval. Now it was time to see what the other 3 girls could do.
Melina was up next. She noticed the holds on the outside of the arete right away but would she be able to get to that part of the route? On her first try, she climbed very strong, got to hold 9 but then misread the beta as she did not use the arete to get into the left hand crimp. She fell while trying to figure it out and did not get any higher on subsequent attempts which put her in 2nd place at the moment.
Next to climb was Cierra and on her 1st try, she made it to hold 6 (round blue sloper) before falling. On her 2nd attempt, she changed her beta up a little and made it to hold 7 before falling while pulling up to match the orange sloper. She would not get any higher after that but tweaking her beta on her 2nd attempt would prove to be the difference between 3rd and 4th place as Lia's high hold ended up being 6 on her first attempt.
In the end, the placings went as I expected with Sidney in 1st, Melina in 2nd, Cierra in 3rd and Lia in 4th but is was essentially tied until Final # 3. The C boys also climbed the same routes as the girls and none of them were able to make Final # 3 so Sidney was the only climber to finish the route. Like I said earlier, TOUGH.
My favorite moment of the comp was seeing all 3 girls on the podium sporting their VW gear and having the biggest smiles! It was the only podium (out of 10) where 1 team swept the top 3 spots so that was special for us and the team. Thankfully, I do have a picture of that.
Sidney, Melina and Cierra sweeping the podium for FYC. (Photo courtesy of Robyn Graham)
Nationals is in a month in Colorado Springs. Wish us luck!
