Last year was the inaugural Portland Boulder Rally and it was a really big event but they weren’t able to hold it until early December. This year, The Circuit Gym wasn’t messing around and came firing out of the gate on October 6th. At the PBR last year, Sidney came in a strong 8th place in the Women’s Open division, 2 spots out of Finals but was looking to improve on that this year. There was a problem with that plan, though, and that was the rumor of some heavy hitters planning on climbing at the comp. Names like Alex Johnson and Nina Williams. Ever heard of them?
Since Sidney was climbing in the 2nd session, we made a day trip of it and left early that morning with Melina Costanza. Of course, the whole gang (Sidney, Melina, Cierra Graham, Makenna Graham and Lia Messinger) climbed in that session, too, but they separated pretty quickly as they each tried to max out their score. Sidney climbed strong for that early in the season and pretty much maxed out her score at 4,650. Melina also crushed with a score of 4,200. Lia was next, barely breaking the 4,000 point barrier with a score of 4,010. Cierra had some problems getting 5 quality routes on her scorecard but got it together at the end with a score of 3,930. Makenna worked hard all session and had a score of 3,020. After the session, we all went with Brad Messinger and the girls to get some lunch and sweat out the scores. Sidney and I both guessed that she would probably be around 8th again but we got a call towards the end of our meal that informed us that Sidney had qualified in 6th and was in the last Finals spot. Nice! The rest of the gang finished in the following placings, Melina-9th-Open, Cierra-10th-Open, Lia-1st-Youth 13-17, Makenna-5th-12 & Under.
Finals went about as I expected. TOUGH! Of the six finalists, only 4 topped problem #1 and Sidney was not one of them. The 4 climbers (all flashes) were Alex Johnson, Nina Williams, Lisa Chulich and Portia Menlove. Sidney gave it 3 great tries but was not experienced enough to get past the crux. She also looked a bit nervous but seemed to relax on the rest of the problems.
Only Alex made another climb and that was problem #2 on her 2nd try. So after Alex, it basically came down to points on separating the placings. Alex was 1st with 2 Tops. Nina was 2nd with 1 flash and 25 points. Lisa was 3rd with 1 flash and 22 points. Portia was 4th with 1 flash and 21 points. Sierra Blair-Coyle was 5th with 16 points and Sidney was 1 point behind her with 15 points to finish in 6th. After problem #1, Sidney climbed really, really well. What I will remember most is when she outpointed Alex on problem #3 and had the 2nd highest point total for that route after Nina.
All in all, it was a great showing for Sidney. She gained a lot of experience and made $100 for her 6th place finish to boot. Also, she is only 13 years old and the other 5 finalists were all in their 20’s so she has time to keep getting bigger and better. We were already looking forward to next year's PBR except we still had 5 more comps in the next 7 weeks!
