Winter 2010 - The Alpine Club of Canada

Canada’s Youth Team competes at World Championship
by Iain Stewart-Patterson
In September, Canada sent a team
of 24 athletes aged 13 to 19 to the
18th annual Youth World Climbing
Championships in Edinburgh, Scotland.
The climbers competed in two events,
Speed and Lead (difficulty) climbing.
The competition drew 430 athletes
from 39 countries, making it the largest
climbing competition in the world. The
Canadian athletes came from Toronto,
Calgary, Edmonton, Canmore, Banff,
Kamloops, Maple Ridge, Vancouver,
Nanaimo and Victoria. In previous years,
the athletes were from the three Western
provinces, but this year two from Ontario
joined the team.
Team members were selected based
on their cumulative performances at local
and regional competitions, and at the
2010 Canadian Championship, which
took place in Quebec City in June. The
top four male and female athletes in three
age categories (Youth B, 14-15; Youth A,
16-17; and Junior, 18-19) were selected to
represent Canada at the Youth World
Championship.
The Edinburgh International
Climbing Arena, which hosted the event,
is the world’s largest climbing gym. It
is a roofed-over quarry, built at a cost of
more than $50 million and now owned
and operated by the City of Edinburgh
as a public recreation facility. The highest
of its five climbing walls is 28 metres.
The competition took place on three of
the walls: the 15-metre high international
standard homologated speed wall, the
18-metre Northwest wall, which is
the original competition wall, and the
Hanger, a new, articulated, 15-metre
competition wall.
This year, in an effort to create a
stronger team bonding process and help
the athletes generate an increased level
of individual focus, team members stayed
at a hotel chaperoned by four coaches,
Chris Neve, Dung Nguyen, Jamie Chong
and Sean McColl, and two managers,
Kimanda Jarzebiak and Iain Stewart-
Patterson. In previous years, the athletes
had travelled and stayed with their parents
at a group hotel.
It can be a daunting experience for athletes
to compete at this level with upwards
of 70 competitors in each category. Eleven
of the athletes were competing at the
World Championship for the first time.
The Canadian team faced stiff competition
as most, if not all, the top European
climbers attended the event. Europe
has the highest concentration of youth
competition climbers in the world. The
top climbers from Japan, Australia, New
Zealand, Korea, Kazakhstan, China, Brazil,
Ecuador, Israel, Mexico and the United
States also participated.
The difficulty or Lead climbing
competition is based on two qualifying
climbs, with the top 26 climbers advancing
to a semi-final round. Of those 26,
the top eight proceed to a final round.
Two Canadian climbers made it into the
semi-final—Elan Jonas-McRae, 15, from
Nanaimo, and Elise Sethna, 16, from
Banff. Robert Stewart-Patterson, 14, from
Kamloops, and Alannah Yip, 16, from
Vancouver, almost made the cut, placing
27th and 28th respectively. Elan Jonas-
McRae, competing for the first time at
the World Championship, tied for seventh
place with five other climbers on the
semi-final route. As only the top eight are
taken into the final round, a count-back
to the qualifying round was needed to
separate the climbers. This put Elan into
11th place. Elise Sethna also climbed well
in the semi-final, placing 24th.
Although countries are allowed
to send 24 athletes in each of the two
disciplines, Lead (difficulty) and Speed,
Team Canada.
photo by Iain Stewart-Patterson.
Robert Stewart-Patterson climbs his first
qualifying route. photo by Iain Stewart-Patterson.
Canada sends its team based on Lead
performances. The Canadian athletes
however, all compete in the Speed event
too. In the qualifying round of the Speed
event, athletes raced the clock on the
15-metre, 5.11b wall. The top16 climbers
progressed to the 1/8 final round. In this
round, climbers raced against each other
20 Alpine Club of Canada Gazette Winter 2010