Cliffhanger - Some thoughts on comps...

Remarkbly the weather was alright today. Got to graves park reasonably early considering my laziness and watched a bit of the qualifying, bit gutted I didn't enter as there didn't seem to be too much volume mounting and there was at least one gift. Had a wander around the rest of the park, there wasn't an amazing amount to do apart from shop, which unfortunately requires money. Abstained from the pull up competition (by the way earlier in the day I told a few people how I once watched Adam Dewhurst do around 60 pull ups in 1 minute at a previous competition, by the end of the day supposedly I could do 65. Genius!) as I want to hit the board fresh tomorrow. Roy told me there's some kind of publicity thing for the save the board on thursday, hopefully I can make it but thursday is graduation.
Anyway afternoon came and it was time for the Final's...Although katy whitaker put in a fine performance to take the win I was heavily un-impressed by average performance of the women, come on girls work your weakness' learn how to lock, at least a little bit.... Its always the same story.
Men's final came, Dan Bradley had a skinful then realised he qualified in 5th (top marks to that bloke), Poor Ste Mac just wasn't tall enough for almost all of the problems, Ryan's forearms are ridiculously long, Stu Watson is strong, Gaz parry has turned from beastly strong to beastly strong with mean fingers and deserved the win.

Now for my thoughts on comps - toyed with the idea of putting this on UKB but then thought better of it:


Whether or not comps are your thing, they exist, people do them and I can't really see the problem with that as long as they're taken for what they are and nobody gets too serious. (a comment written by Natalie Berry last year over on planetfear really did my head in, she basically [and i paraphrase] that she wasn't interested in climbing outdoors at all, for her comps are what mattered...).

Anyway:

At one point I counted over 30 people on the mat's (not including competitors, commentators, photographers and camera men), mostly consisting of WAG's/Boyfriends/Brothers/Mum's and Dads... Is this really necessary? It clutters up the climbing area and means the spectators could be a good 2ft closer if there wasn't this row of hangers on.

Another point - is it ethical to have someone's Mum/Dad/Brother be a judge/brush gimp/time gimp or even be in the area? I don't really think so, conflict of interest so to speak.

Although the commentator was ok today (if a little Hard Plastic esque), wouldn't it be better to have some young enthusiastic climber who knew a little background and wasn't reading off a sheet of figures? I'd say so, he kept screaming pull it, pull it, Doesn't he know the hip thing to say currently is "Kill Ty, Kill..."

One thing that I could definately see upsetting a large crowd like the one that turned out today forthe men's final would be a serious injury such as my own, Why does noone seem to want a spot or offer it? There were certainly enough people hanging about....

On an aside, these events obviously take a lot of effort to organise and pull off so good effort to all those involved, and for all you people out there who missed it, i'm sure British Team Productions will have it available for DVD soon...