Until next year

Blokfest is back for its final round! This time the event was hosted by The Castle. For those who don't know The Castle it's this huge centre that used to be a water pumping facility that they have now renovated to look, well, like a castle. With many different levels for bouldering they also have other hidden levels and ropes there too.

The squad all arrive like normal with an added Tom and we go around like we do at every Blokfest, marking the climbs with easy, medium and hard and then have me telling them not to underestimate themselves by marking a really easy climb with hard. Luna and Eloise went around with Luna's dad, Iris with her dad while the guys went around with myself and Tom. Not too long after we get straight on with the warm up and begin to climb. starting off with a few easy problems first I begin to push them onto a medium problem which they all cruised through. After a few slightly challenging problems, we get into the catacombs level to test their core strength in the roof section. Most of the guys and girls got this problem first time which was great and meant we could move on to the comp wall and loft.

One problem really stood out for these guys which was the blue on the comp wall using 360 holds. This, from everyone's perspective looked pretty hard. Alas, they all got on this and flashed it first go making it look nothing harder than a V1 (although I hear it was V3). I was worried for one of our shorter members, Iris, as it looked like she would've had to do this huge dyno for the last move but instead managed to wedge herself in and balance and only just poke the last hold with both hands.

Onto the loft where this proved very difficult for the junior guys. Starting off with a tricky looking flathold volume problem again which most of them made look easy. Then onto this huge dyno, dirty slab and hard overhanging problem which none of them managed to do. Iris came very close to getting the slab which later not many people were able to get at all. One problem Iris got but had trouble with was this one on the boulder in the loft, move out into this crack, work your way up to a sloper then big dyno (for her) to the finish.

Coming back down all the stairs to the Panels onto some fairly easy problems for them apart from the one on the right and in the Pen, we begin to have a look back at the hard problems they were unable to get. unfortunately the guys didn't manage to get any extra points but Iris and Luna manage to. Overall the scores ended up with Luna on 215, Iris with her biggest score yet of 201, Johnny and Eloise with 180, Finn with 174, and Andreas with 164. For Andreas, this was his first proper competition and personally I don't think I could be happier with their scores. Yes, some silly mistakes were made and hopefully they'll know for next time.

Onto the junior results ceremony, none of ours got podium for the day but congrats to those who did. for overall category for all 5 events, Luna manage to come 1st place with an impressive overall score of 854 putting her 15 points ahead of 2nd place overall! If Iris attended another Blokfest event and scored anywhere above 170 she would've been at least third, which is something to take away from this and learn for next year.

 

I didn't stick around too long for the adults but only 2 of ours turned up, Julia and Anthelme. From what I hear they done the best they could and there were some great tops all round. I think they even surprised themselves with how well they can actually climb too.

Anthleme on the 360 comp wall problem

Overall, I'm very proud with this current squad and couldn't be happier with their scores and attitude to the whole event. With some great problems which really tested them they managed to do pretty good and come out with a great experience with things to work on for next years Blokfest. Thanks to the guys for the great setting and running of the comp as well as all the sponsors for making it happen!