Scottish Youth Climbing Championships 2011

Brief Report and pics by Kevin Howett

Full Report from Avril Gall

The SYCC was held at the EICA: Ratho on Saturday 28th May to find the Scottish Youth Champions. With a continuing bad weather forecast for strong winds and rain, there was nowhere else better to be! As a result the arena was full to brimming all day with climbers escaping the remnants of the bad storm on the Monday before. Indeed it was filled with a lot of children! A good sign for Scottish climbing!

69 children attended the competition this year with the top 5 kids from the YCS categories being invited to fight it out, current GB Team menbers, and the additional 17-19yr category. Scott Forsyth took charge on the day as Area Youth Cordinator as Simon was unable to make it due to work commitments. Avril Gall organised the day's activities and made sure the scoring went smoothly. The routes were set by Neil McGeachy, Calum Forsyth and Mark McGowan, and numerous parents played an instrumental role as judges or belayers.

It proved to be a long day, with registration starting at 9am and the day finishing at 8.30pm. A warm up session led by ex-GB Team member Robert Mackenzie, ably assisted by Calum Forsyth and GB Senior Team member Natalie Berry, saw the kids running and jumping around the arena. The routes were set on the Speed Wall, the old Competition Wall and The Hanger Wall and were all demonstrated at the start of the procedings - and there were a fair number of demonstrators caught out, much to the crowd's amusement! After the qualifying rounds, and whilst waiting for the Finals Routes to be prepared, presentations were made for the winners of the Youth Climbing Series (YCS) which had concluded a few weeks before. They all recieved their winners' plaques and their Team Hoodies. IdesignI have proudly sponsored the two Scottish Teams this year.

Then the SYCC Finals were held with all the kids competing from isolation in the bouldering room so all routes were attempted on-sight. There were some superb performances from the kids with on-sights of routes judged to be F7c+, especially from those in the 11-13yr & 14-16yr categories. There was a good turn-out for the 17-19yr category with 7 boys battleing for the title of champion's position, but only Ellen Macaskill competed for the girls. Tiso sponsored the SYCC prizes this year and the original 'sport lower-off' trophies made up by Scott Muir who held the inaugural youth championship were presented to the Champions.

See Avril's full report for more detail (and some stats!) but the winners are listed below:

SYCC 2011
Position	Boys	Girls
8yr-10yr Category
1st	Rhys Langlands	Rhiannon Freireich
2nd	Rory White	Keri Maclennan
3rd	Thomas Ryan	Holly Davis
11yr-13yr Category
1st	William Bosi	Kirsten Gray
2nd	Angus Davidson	Gabriella Stewart
3rd	Rory Cargill	Keira Farmer
14yr-16yr Category
1st	Stephen Addison	Rachel Carr
2nd	Dylan Mackenzie	Nikki Addison
3rd	Willis Morris	Rebekah Drummond
17yr-19yr Category
1st	Ross Kirkland	Ellen Macaskill
2nd	Alasdair Johnstone
3rd	Calum Forsyth