NBL 2011 & Alicedale

The finals for National Boulder League were held in Grahamstown this year, and turned out to be a rather successful event. After weeks and weeks of hard sessions of Boulder League every Tuesday night, it was time to make the trip and meet up with strong climbers from all over the country.

Out of the top scoring Cape climbers, myself, Duncan, Robbie and Clara were heading to the finals in Grahamstown in my car. So in preparation for the trip, I decided to make sure that my car got a service, and was in good working order for the 800km odd drive out of Cape Town. So bright and early I drove to pick up the rest of the gang, and off we went to Grahamstown.

We made it to Grahamstown safe and sound, and set up camp at the local camp site. Early the next morning we headed to one of Rhodes University's sports halls where the comp was to be held. Paul Bruyere and Wesley Black had been hard at work setting the problems for the whole comp, and had done a rather sterling job. The wall was great; mostly overhanging, not too high and had been stripped specifically for the comp.

The Rhodes wall.

 

Paul Bruyere setting away.

The turnout for the younger age groups was amazing, which is likely a result of the strong schools leagues that have been in action for the past two years. The high turnout meant long waiting times between rounds, which is never fun, but inevitable nonetheless. Trying to keep fingers warm while waiting is always a schlep. The qualifying rounds were great, and resulted in a nice split in the fields in preparation for the finals.

Duncan, Benj, PW, James and myself made it into the mens open finals. After some fair and well set problems the field was split, except for some tie breakers. The method used to break the ties was unusual to say the least, and I'm not quite sure where the method was taken from. The tie breaker used was the amount of time one took to get to the bonus hold on each problem, and then the average of that over the final problems. In the end the results turned out fine, although personally I was rather annoyed with the end result, mostly due to the fact that after I had placed second, the judges and organisers failed to record my result, and I had to query the final result at the end. As it turned out my scorer failed to mark my flash of one of the final problems on my score card.

On my flash of the second Men's Finals problem.

At the same time as missing out on a prize, I was rushed through to the drug testing procedures as now I was required to submit a urine sample (having another man actively watch you pee is not cool, I can assure you). I would like to give my support to the organisers for a great job, but at the same time we are trying to meet international competition standards to be granted membership of the IFSC, and so we cant really let errors like this slip through the cracks...

All in all, the comp was great, and we all thoroughly enjoyed it. A huge thank you needs to go out to Neil Margetts for his dedication to the SANCF and the organisation of this comp and also to the route setters Paul and Wesley, and another huge thank you to Tristan who (i think single-handedly) provided all prizes for the competition. Hopefully all of Tristan's generosity will soon return to him.

 

Rachelle de Charmoy cruising the ladies problems.

 

Benj on the second Men's Finals problem.

Benj sealing the deal with his flash of the third Men's Finals problem.

After the comp we all headed out to the sports bar/hall for a couple drinks, which then turned into a good night out in Grahamstown.


Final Results:
U15 Boys
TRISTAN SWART
DAVID MUIR
BYRON CROFFORD
BRANDON VAN HURTEN

U15 Girls
ERAN WALDECK
TSAI-NI KU
RACHEL SEALY-FISHER

U17 Boys
EVAN MARGETTS
DEVIN MURRAY
TRAVIS GILLESPIE
DILLON VAN STADEN
JORGE GONCALVES

U17 Girls
SAMANTHA STAINTON
GILLIAN BESTER

U19 Boys
JASON  SALT
CALRIN CURTIS
DYLAN VOGT
STEFAN LUTGE
ROBIN SHERWOOD
GREGORY OUDHOF
KERN LEASK

U19 Girls
EMMA PINNOCK
CLARA GRANT
LORNA BORN

Senior Men
BENJAMIN DE CHARMOY
ANDREW WOOD
JAMES BARNES
PIETER WILLIAM
DUNCAN FRASER
ROBBIE FRASER
MATTHEW SCHNEUWLY
DAVE SCOTT
GREG  CARTER
CARL BURTON-DURHAM
NKOSINATH NAMA
MITCHEL PINDUEAS
JOHN WESSELS
GARETH BERRY
JONATHON HATTING

Senior Women
ILLONA PELSER
RACHELLE DE  CHARMOY
CANDICE BAGLEY
LESLEE SALZMANN
JESSIE PEARSON
EMMA JACKSON
LINDI FRYER
DEZ BENOIT

Alicedale was on the cards for the next day. I had heard good things about this area, and had seen topo's while drunk the night before. The topos looked really good, and had a surprisingly large amount of problems listed. So after a short drive out to Alicedale, as well as a fairly short walkin, we were there. The area has very nice rock, a fairly rough sandstone that varies from sandy and flaky to super rough to glossy smooth.

 

Unfortunately the day after a comp isn't the best day for some hard bouldering. I had multiple tweaks in my fingers and was taping them a lot. We still managed to get on some great problems, only to be rained out before we got a try an awesome looking 7B slab...