Page 42 - 2009 AMA Summer

THE EUROPEAN MILITARY CLIMBING CHAMPIONSHIPS 2008
Early doors 19th Nov 2008 saw 7 pairs of bleary eyes bound for Gatwick airport. The Combined Services Sport Climbing Team had been training hard for the past 4 months since the Inter Services Climbing Champs in July and were now psyched for the challenge that had finally arrived: representing Britain at the 3rd European Military Climbing Championships. The full complement of Services were represented in the team with 5 Army (Pete Skinsley the Team Manager, Mike Smith, Tom Odling, Loz Owen and Cristal Crooks), one Navy (Steve Glennie) and one RAF (Stu Harth), all select- ed from their performances at the Inter Services Championships.
finals the following day, including our only female, Cristal; Loz Owen nar- rowly missed out by a single move on the hardest qualifier. Veteran Mike Smith was so convinced he had not secured a place he took the difficult decision to hang-up his boots and retire from competitive climbing, only
to bounce back out of retirement just 2 hours later when the suc- cessful competitors were announced including him - surely the shortest retirement in history!
Day two of the competition brought feelings of disappointment from some, and further anxiety for others. Despite this, the team support was evident as full tri-service representation stepped into isolation at 0700. Competitors now needed to climb both the semi-final and final routes on-sight to succeed. 27 nervous male faces desperately tried to use the limited bouldering available to prepare them for the men’s Fr 7b+ route they would now need to climb in order to become one of the 8 who would progress to the final. If the previous day had seemed stressful, it was nothing compared to the minutes that ticked by as energy was used to warm-up, but balanced with the need to feel fresh for climbing. The UK team were called out in reverse order and attempted the semi-final route. Unfortunately despite their best efforts, none of the male team managed a place in the final, but all did themselves proud. Cristal faired much better qualifying direct for the ladies final (Fr 7b) and finished a very creditable 5th in Europe. The men's competition went the distance with 4 men toping the final route (Fr 7c) and 2 managing to complete the super final (Fr 8a+) on sight!
For those not climbing on day 2 the reputation of the UK still needed to be upheld in the speed climbing competition, with the sole target of beating the Belgians! For 5 long minutes Team UK stood on the podi- um only to be eventually piped by 0.60 seconds into 3rd place by 2 French teams. They did manage to beat the Belgians so all was not lost!
Well done to all the team members for doing their best and thanks go to all those who helped in the preparations for the competition, especially the sponsors, BFBS, the 3 Services Mountaineering Associations and the 3 Sports Lotteries. The look forward for the team is to the next European Military Climbing Championships in November 2009 in Zurich, Switzerland.
Results
Men
1st Gfr Kilian Fischhuber, Austria (double world bouldering champion!)
2nd Sdt Cristoph Zaugg, Switzerland
3rd Sch Cosmin Scortea, Romania
18th Surg Lt Steve Glennie
21st Maj Mike Smith (second best veteran overall) 24th Flt Lt Stu Harth
29th Sgt Loz Owen 43rd Capt Tom Odling 58th Maj Pete Skinsley
Women
1st Sdt Christine Schranz Austria 2nd Cha Marion Poitevin France 3rd Gna Alice Coldefy France
5th Pte Cristal Crooks
Team
1st Switzerland 2nd Italy
3rd Belgium 4th Austria
5th UK
6th Germany
7th Spain
(France were not given a team placing as they organised the event but would have scored 23 points putting them second).
The British team, along with the best 99 men and 13 women of 8 other nations, including the double World Bouldering Champion Kilian Fischuber of Austria, gathered at the Ecole Militaire de Haute Montagne in Chamonix. The team were greeted with warm wel- comes from the French and from familiar faces of other nationalities from other previous climbing events. The annual competition is held over 2 days with lead climb eliminators (Fr 6a-7b) and a fun boul- dering competition (18 problems Fr 5-8a) on day 1 and the semi- finals, finals and speed climbing element on day 2. The venue, in the heart of Chamonix under the gaze of Mont Blanc, is impressive and better than any military facility in the UK!
Demonstrations of the 5 qualifying routes on the first day com- menced at 0730 sharp – an ungodly hour to climb for most! The for- mat of the event meant that competitors could only climb 3 of the 5 with their hardest route counting. Great deliberation had been made over previous weeks as to which of the routes might be attempted and in what order, in the knowledge that all routes had to be climbed on the first-attempt, and once a given difficulty had been failed, a harder route could not be climbed. Adrenaline was coursing through veins as the team warmed up using boulder problems which had been set for this purpose, and other routes in the facility, but know- ing all the while that nothing could truly prepare any of them for that unknown they would encounter on each of the routes. Mistakes were made by many, with sequences forgotten, and limbs becom- ing mysteriously wrapped around one-another, but at the end of day 1, 4 of the UK team had managed to progress through to the semi-
11 points 31 points 55 points 58 points 64 points 89 points
40 ARMY MOUNTAINEER
147 points