north american climbing championships this weekend

[john]

NACC is this weekend in montreal, live feed on drtopo.com if anyone is interested. It is a big comp 250 + competitors across the age categories canada US and Mexico can send its top 10 in each age for juniors and 10 for open/pro. We have 13 open here to attend. It will be an eye opener for canada as most of us only compete in boulder never lead and speed, most of us dont have the facility to train but it should be fun. The IFSC has sent route setter, organizers and the president for aid which is great. It is useful for us in the east since as the captain I have an opportunity to go to all the delegate meetings to learn. I will try to bring back some good info for our comps in atlantic. I will keep you posted.

jb

[Adam]

cool! i'll try to tune in online. good luck John!

[Burley]

Yet another reason to build a larger lead gym.

[Shawn B]

Yes good luck John and anyone else who is going (Holly?, PJ?). Can someone post who is competing and results after the comp. It would be nice to keep up with how the locals are doing. I saw an article in the SJ newspaper a few weeks ago about a guy from Quispamsis that was going too (can't remember his name as I have never heard it before). Was quite an article.

I agree with Burley. Someone (no I'm not volunteering) should be approaching gov't for some $$ to put up a high quality training facility. Heck, they put tens of millions into arena's that 5% of the public uses. A half a million plus into a skateboard park. We must be entitled to a few hundred thousand to put up a facility for our world class athletes to train at.

[john]

More later I need to get some sleep it has been a 15 hour comp day Iso opens at 7am tomorrow. Womens open is still going but the mens open qualis are done. We got 4 of 7 pro men through, I believe, Sean McColl, Brock Tilling, Benoit Dubois and myself, all who qualified flashed both qualifier routes.

I think there were about 250 climbers at the event it was nuts with parents and spectators there was no room to move. I am looking forward to ISO tomorrow to avoid the crowds.

jb

[Fred]

ataboy john!!!

[john]

A quick update for open competitors.

Another 14hr day, so long with 2 events the second day was difficult due to the 2 hr warm up compete cool down and doing it twice after the second day on.

Canadians did well, I am impressed despite the lack of lead and speed experience how well we are doing, most of us are extremely experienced boulder comp climbers, but have never done lead comps or speed due to the lack of them.

Mens lead was far more difficult then yesterday, numerous climbers fell off the first move before even getting to clip which is frustrating after waiting in iso for hours, it was a difficult mantel move to start. Sean M is the only one to top, an American, Zeb E was second I was third, tied with a couple others and the other 2 Canadians, Brock T and Benoit D, did make finals 7th and 8th? We have 4 men out of 8 in finals!

The women did well also, I did not get to see final results, but I believe we have 2-3 women Melissa L and Erin F and Melanie? are in lead finals. Unfortunately, one of the lead women missed ISO and was disqualified!

Speed was interesting we waited 7 hrs to get to try it, a difficult experience for me. I have never ever tried to race up a indoor wall, all training has always been about slow and controlled. So to aiming for 6 second and basically campusing up the wall seemed nuts. Most people who made lead finals did not do speed, but I really wanted to try. It was fun and zero pressure everyone laughs and has fun, not the stress of lead and boulder comps. I didn't stick around to see the final results, but I know 3 of 4 finals spots went to Canadians but only 5 Open guys manned up to compete hahaha. I think Dan qualified first, I may be second or third, Benoit 3 or 4th and an American qualified as well. Sean was disqualified for missing hitting the buzzer in his first route which was to bad.

We have some women in speed finals as well, I know Holly and Melissa made it but I am not sure who else.

We will see what tomorrow brings.

[john]

Just got in from the comp 20hrs since I left, I am basically dead. There are people wondering so I thought I would send a quick post.

Turns out doing speed yesterday was a bad but good idea. I waited seven hours after lead semis to do sped qualifiers and did not warm up well since I was doing it only for fun. I tried hard and was super sore cause of it today. Who new? hahhaha

Today I did not do well at lead. I fell from 3rd to 7th overall for the NACC. Still far better than I expected since I have never done rope comps, but worse than I thought I would do based on semis. Sean M won handily, but did not send the route which was by all accounts great, but long, hard and very beta specific.

However, to my complete surprise I won overall speed. I could not believe it. Admittedly, me nor the competition was experienced. But it was still a big event to try it for the first time. I was very happy since it pre qualifies me for World Championships in Tapei in 2009 and for all world cups for 2 years. To bad we dont have a speed wall to practice on? Or even a rope gym with a speed route for that matter? hahahhaha Back to the bouldering eh?

Holly also did very well, she finished 4th overall speed, I think, and from a larger field. Great work Holly!

Thanks for the support to those who have been inquiring.

john

[Greg]

Wow John, first place in speed.......nice work!

Congratulations!!

[STeveA]

Well done John. I competed against Hans Florine in speed climbing at Edmonton and it is a lot of fun. As you mentioned it is a different mentality going as fast as possible. How long was the route?

Keep in mind that we have some roped climbing here in SJ that you are welcome to try. I can guarantee that some of the routes we have up will test you (and by we I mean Jon and PJ).

[Fred]

hahahhaha

The SPED qualifiers eh? Nice to hear you made it. I'm not sure that's a good thing but...

I think you mean speed qualifiers. Funny how one missing letter can turn something upside down.

Good job John. Way to put Islandview on the map.

[*Chris*]

Awesome job John!
You totally got a shout-out at Climbing Magazine's site!

[Holly Reid]

Yes good luck John and anyone else who is going (Holly?, PJ?). I saw an article in the SJ newspaper a few weeks ago about a guy from Quispamsis that was going too (can't remember his name as I have never heard it before). Was quite an article.

Thanks Shawn! It was definitely an experience. Speed climbing is hilarious! I think I laughed the entire climb. I'm assuming the article was on Jordan Jamison (he's from Quispam but going to school here in Freddy) as he went as well (climbed in the junior category).

[NB_Gecko]

Yes good luck John and anyone else who is going (Holly?, PJ?). I saw an article in the SJ newspaper a few weeks ago about a guy from Quispamsis that was going too (can't remember his name as I have never heard it before). Was quite an article.

Thanks Shawn! It was definitely an experience. Speed climbing is hilarious! I think I laughed the entire climb. I'm assuming the article was on Jordan Jamison (he's from Quispam but going to school here in Freddy) as he went as well (climbed in the junior category).

Yeah if it was KV Style, it was me.The boss at my work/ sponsor tipped them off. But not going to pretend I didn't have fun being interviewed.
I had a blast at the NACC. I gained a heck of a lot of experience in that one weekend. Especially about how to deal with pressure from crowds and large events. Didn't do nearly as well as I'd hoped, but a good experience otherwise.

Had a chance to participate in speed as well. It was a fun time, but not something I'd want to specifically train for. Some Americans were crazy at it. I guess if it's something you like to do though, why not.

Cheers guys
Jordan Jamison