Since Sidney is a U.S. citizen and this is a Canadian event,
I contacted a very cool guy, Bill Hendsbee, who is an official with the CEC
(Climbing Escalade Canada). He said she
was welcome to compete at their National but she would have to participate in
their Western Canadian Regional first which was in Calgary, Alberta on April 20th
and 21st. Sidney and I were
both excited and agreed that this was a great opportunity so I booked the two
of us airfare to Calgary so she could compete.
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| Sidney with downtown Calgary in the background. It was cold! (Photo courtesy of me) |
We arrived in Calgary in the evening on the Friday before the comp. The B & B we were staying at was a short walk to the event which was hosted by the Calgary Climbing Centre and was on a major bus line so we didn’t need to rent a car which was nice. We had a light dinner, hit the local Safeway for some supplies and then hung out in our room for a while before hitting the sack.
Saturday was Qualifiers but the format was a bit different
than what Sidney was used to. Since the
gym was fairly small and lacked wall space, they ran all the competitors
through Qualifier #1, took a break and then ran them all through Qualifier
#2. For Saturday, all of the Female B, A
and Open competitors climbed the same 2 routes.
Sunday would be similar as they ran all the competitors who qualified
for Semifinals through 1 route, scored them and then ran those that qualified
for Finals on 1 route. For Sunday, they
added the Female Juniors to the previous 3 from Saturday as all 4 categories
climbed the same Semifinal and Final route.
What I liked about this format is that you can directly compare your
score not only against your own category but against the other categories that
climbed the same route. This did put the
younger climbers in each grouping at a disadvantage and the scores reflected
that but for Sidney it was perfect.
Qualifier #1 was pretty straightforward and Sidney flashed
it easily. Out of the 17 young women in
her Youth B category, 5 of them topped the route. The other 4 were Eva Thompson from Calgary,
Remi Irwin from Edmonton, Mika Hosoi from Vancouver and Julia Massullo, also
from Vancouver. For the Youth A female
climbers, 12 out of 17 topped the route and both Female Open competitors topped
the route. Since no one knew who she
was, it was a bit odd to watch her climb with no one cheering her on by
name. In fact, when you watch the video,
note that no one is cheering for her at all and there is only a very light
applause from a couple of people when she tops the route. As each video will show, her cheering section
gets bigger after each successful climb and more people are urging her on by
her name. You can watch Qualifier #1
here, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Mo6u-RWHpg
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| The Calgary Tower. (Photo courtesy of me) |
We had a few hours to kill after Qualifier #1 so we walked into
downtown to see some sights. A couple of
my favorites were this huge, metal latticed head that was in front of a big
building with security guards at the entrance.
Every time Sidney would climb up 3 feet for me to take a picture, they
would start walking toward her which of course freaked her out. The other was going up to the top of the
Calgary Tower. It is the same height as
our Space Needle here in Seattle and while a fun experience, it’s not as cool
as the Needle. Since we were running out of time and it was snowing out, we took a taxi back to the comp much to Sidney's relief.
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| Sidney just moments before the security guard came to arrest her. Run!!! (Photo courtesy of me) |
After Qualifiers, we had a delicious meal with Bill and all
the climbers/parents from the Rock Jungle climbing team from Edmonton, along
with their coach, Dan Achambault. It was
great to hang out with some new, cool climbing families. I learned a lot about Canadian culture and some
of the interesting differences in youth climbing between our countries. Thank you Rock Jungle!
Sunday had the Semifinal route in the morning and the Final
route early in the afternoon. For
Semifinals, the Female B category had 11 climbers, the Female A category had 11
climbers, the Female Junior category had 6 climbers and the Female Open
category had 2 climbers. They would all
be climbing the same Semifinal route. It
started in a small roof section and gradually rounded up to a narrow section
that was slightly overhung. The wall
stayed at this angle until the last 6 or 7 feet where it went straight up to
the finish. Of course halfway up, Sidney
decided she didn’t want to use the proper beta and instead just toed the wall
into a full extension and skipped a hold.
I trust her instincts because she knows her abilities but I still don’t
like it when she does it. Sidney was the
only climber in her category to top the route.
Among the other categories there were a few more tops compared to
Qualifiers as Becca Frangos from Canmore and Amy Sutley (fellow Evolv National
Team member) from Calgary in the Female A group, Allison Vest from Canmore and
Alyssa Weber from Calgary in the Female Junior group and Hung-Ying Lee from
Vancouver in the Female Open group all flashed the route. View the Semifinal route here, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZMnvn9gIX8
The Finals count for each category ended up with 7
competitors in Female B, 7 in Female A, 5 in Female Junior and 2 in Female
Open. The Finals route was really hard
in that it had a very specific beta sequence that was needed to get through the
middle section of the route. The
sequence was in a corner and you had to stem a few moves up in order to move
over into the upper half of the route.
What was catching the eye of a lot of competitors was a yellow hold out
to the left that looked like it could be a handhold but was in fact a
foothold. Basically if you missed the
beta you were not going any farther than hold 13. Of the 21 climbers who attempted this route,
13 did not get any higher than hold 13 with 9 of those climbers falling at hold
13 while trying to control the yellow foothold.
When you watch the video, notice that Sidney is stumped for a while as
well as she comes ever so close to going for the yellow foothold, too. She figures out eventually that it is way too
hard a move, looks for a different way and figures out the correct beta. Later, Sidney told me she did not hear any
other climbers talking about stemming during the route preview as they were all
focused on the yellow foothold so that’s what she did, too. In the end, a couple of climbers came within
2 or 3 holds from the top but Sidney was the only climber to flash the route to
the applause of the crowd. Watch the
Final route and see if you think you would have seen the correct beta, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyexMoW9YQY
Sidney came in first place in her category and she was the
only climber of the entire competition to top all 4 routes. Rounding out the top 5 from Sidney’s category
were the other 4 competitors who topped Qualifier #1. They were Eva in 2nd place, Remi
in 3rd place, Mika in 4th place and Julia in 5th
place. Unfortunately, the comp ran a
little late and we were not able to stay for the awards presentation as we had
a flight to catch but Bill gave Sidney her medal as we were leaving so that was
nice. All in all, Sidney and I had an
awesome experience in Calgary, made some new friends and were thankful we
decided to attend the Western Canadian Regional. After all that, we were really looking
forward to the Canadian National event in Victoria, B.C.
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| The view through the glass floor at the top of the Calgary Tower. (Photo courtesy of me) |
