New 2007 Bouldering Team

Following the recent team trials on Saturday 9th December at the Climbing Works in Sheffield, the new 2007 bouldering team has now been selected. Read about the team as they travel to Fontainebleau in France, for the first meeting of 2007.

Follow them here on the Team Blog

Bulgaria Bouldering World Cup 2006 - Competition Report

The second round of the Bouldering World Cup was held in Veliko Tarnavo, Bulgaria. This was the 5th international event held here in as many years but it was the first bouldering event and the first time we had visited Bulgaria. For a change instead of the usual Ryan Air scramble we flew in relative luxury with Lufthansa via Frankfurt to Sofia the Bulgarian capital.

Bulgaria is billed as the place to buy at the moment but on seeing the shocking housing and very poor standard of living in the area surrounding the airport it was a pretty shocking welcome to a country that is on the whole very beautiful. From Sofia we were in for a treat with a four hour drive along one of the bumpiest tarmac roads on the planet luckily we had our two trusty Bulgarian translators with us to cheer us up. Recently Bulgaria has been the scene for some fairly extensive flooding and this trip was not going to let us down on the weather front, after about two hours driving we were faced with the heaviest hailstone storm we had ever seen. With stones the size of golf balls we spent about half an hour hiding under a motorway bridge till we could finally push on.

Arriving in Veliko which is actually the old capital of Bulgaria we were shown to our hotel and decided to take the opportunity to sleep for a few hours before dinner. Dinner arrived soon enough and we were shown to a couple of quality restaurants where we soon discovered the exchange rate was in our favour, after a massive feast and £1 later we were happy campers. After being left by our hosts earlier we headed off in the direction of our hotel. As always the first night out in a new country can be slightly intimidating especially when there are no street lights, it is raining and you have to walk through an area of town that looks like the roughest parts of downtown New York! Thankfully there were no gangsters around and we returned safely.

Comp day arrived and thankfully we were able to have a leisurely start with the qualifiers starting in the afternoon. With no problems running up to the comp we were all hoping to do well. After 66 minutes each though we only had Andy qualify to the semi-final, with the standard of the problems being very very hard and the fact that you only needed to climb one problem to qualify(which the whole field did) qualification came down to a bit of a lottery with results being decided on goes on bonuses. This was to be the theme of the comp until the finals. With the same standard of problems in the semi Andy climbed much better second time around and managed to finish in a very creditable 12th place. Lessons to be learnt must try harder! After watching a spectacular final we had a few hours to enjoy the sights and smells of town but at 1am we had a date with a none English speaking Bulgarian taxi driver and a very bumpy road home.

Results
Earl 12th
Parry 24th
Croxall 38th

27th May 2006 - Bouldering Team to participate in the opening of the New climbing Wall in Blackpool.

The British Bouldering Team will be spending the day onsite for the opening of the ‘George Bancroft Park and Official Gateway’.

The Team will be providing workshops at the new climbing wall from 10am to 4pm giving advice and climbing demonstrations throughout the day.