Climbing is one of our 52 clubs that is open to beginners looking for casual climbing, to students itching to compete. Last year, the club secured funding from the Alumni Annual Fund and has looked to focus on hosting as well as attending more competitions this year. Competition Secretary Lizzie Graham has given us a great overview of how Term 1 went for the Climbing Club.
In September 2023, we hosted the first competition of the year. This consisted of 25 blocs from V1 to V8. We had an outstanding number of participants with 50 competitors, roughly equal in gender. From the start of term, this showed a real interest in competition climbing. Using these results and previous BUCS results we decided on 6 male, and 6 female athletes to represent us in the upcoming competition season. Then we used the allotted alumni fund money to cover 6 months of high-intensity training profiles for each athlete from accomplished coach Joe Walmsley.
Our athletes have performed excellently during the first cycle of training. Despite difficult schedules and university commitments they have trained consistently throughout term 1 and have yielded excellent results on behalf of the University.
In bouldering, we have competed in all 3 rounds of the Flashmasters series at the Project Climbing Centre in Poole. All of our athletes have placed in the top 15 competitors in the female and open categories. All three competitions saw over 80 competitors, so these results are truly exemplary. Everyone has placed higher in the later comps showing the impact of our training cycles. These results mean that all of our competitors have qualified for the finals in February however we cannot attend this due to the clash with BUCS, so we are making alternative arrangements with Bournemouth University for a spotlight event instead.
In lead, we hosted the annual University of Exeter lead competition which was attended by 5 other Universities. We were expecting 60 competitors however on the day we facilitated 30 due to deadline and transport clashes. In the female category, Izzy Pourrat placed 2nd and in the male category, we had Oli Stanley and Ollie LC place 1st and 2nd respectively. This is a huge improvement on last year’s results for the team and it was a pleasure to host this competition at the Quay Climbing Centre.
This term (2) we are excited to be competing at Boulder Shack in Southampton for their annual competition as well as BUCS at the Climbing Works in Sheffield. In lead, we are excited to attend NULCCS at Warwick University and the South West Lead Championships at the Quay Climbing Centre. Our competitors may even attend the British Bouldering Championships this summer.
Good luck to the climbing club for the rest of the season! We cannot wait to see how you get on!