The best of British junior climbing was on show in Imst last weekend at the IFSC European Youth Championship (lead and speed climbing) with William Bosi and Jim Pope both achieving top ten positions. Hayley McKenna reports.

The GB team converged on Imst, Austria from three locations across the UK to attend last weekend’s IFSC European youth championships in both lead and speed disciplines.

The venue, Klettern Imst, is one of the premier climbing centres in the world with both indoor and outdoor climbing walls.  The competition took place on the outdoor wall with indoor areas used for warm ups and isolation, as well as keeping cool in between climbs.

Our GB junior lead team was well represented by 11 climbers with three further climbers taking part in the speed event.  The speed event took place on Friday with an early start for competitors to practice and warm up prior to qualifications. Lead team manager and coach Ian Dunn stepped in to look after the speed climbers, assisting them throughout the day.  Despite not making the knock-out stages, two of our speed climbers, Orrin Coley (19th) and Ian Bownes (14th), achieved personal bests with Orrin breaking the 10-second mark (9.89 secs) and Ian (11.91 secs). Alexander Bosi, who came in 21st with a time of 11.52 secs, also competed and supported his brother William in the lead event. If the GB team are going to be competitive in this discipline in the future, some investment, time and coaching is required in order to improve route times to around 6 seconds, which other nations are currently achieving.

The official opening ceremony took place on Friday evening prior to the speed finals under a heavy thunderstorm.  Our oldest members of the team Charlotte Garden and Jennifer Wood carried the GB flags on to the stage along with the other 28 nations represented. In total, 492 Athletes from 29 European countries participated in the event.

The GB team headed down to the wall early on Saturday morning for the lead qualifiers. The first of two qualifying route saw excellent efforts from William Bosi, Peter Dawson and Jim Pope in Youth B and team captain Molly Thompson-Smith in Youth A, putting them in a good position to challenge for a place in the final.

The second qualifier saw disappointment for Peter Dawson (12th) who narrowly missed out on qualifying for the final. However, William Bosi (9th) and Jim Pope (10th) succeeded! This was a strong performance from the three Youth B Males, and a particularly fine effort from Jim in making his first international final. Unfortunately, Molly didn’t have her best day finishing in 12th. Junior Females Charlotte Garden (21st), Jennifer Wood (27th) and Sarah Pashley (30th) performed to their best in a strong field.

In Youth A, Alex Waterhouse (28th) and Buster Martin (21st) both had a much better second climb, which had they been able to replicate in their first route would have given them a good chance of making the final. Connor Byrne also competed in this category (53rd).

The outstanding climb of the day for the GB team was from newcomer Rebecca Kinghorn (19th) in Youth B whose second route was also the Junior Females’ first qualifier.  Rebecca reached hold #40, higher than either of our Junior Female competitors, and would have actually placed her in 11th position in the older category on this route. This shows fantastic potential for the future as Rebecca is still in the first year of Youth B.

In the Youth B final on Sunday, William Bosi and Jim Pope finished 7th and 9th respectively.

Following on from the GB Junior Bouldering Team’s success in L’Argentière last week at the European Youth Cup (Bouldering) with Nathan Phillips coming 3rd and Hamish Potokar coming 6th, the future for GB climbing looks bright!

Watch this space as the elite of the GB Junior lead climbing team are off to the IFSC World Youth Championship in Canada on 15-19 August where we hope to capitalize on our current success.

Travelling to Canada are Molly Thompson-Smith, William Bosi, Peter Dawson, Jim Pope, Buster Martin, and Alex Waterhouse. William finished fourth in last year’s World Youth Championship in Singapore and Molly finished seventh, so hopes are high for some strong performances.

We wish them all the best of luck.

See more photos of the event courtesy of the Austria Climbing Team

The Junior British Leading Team is supported by Sherpa Adventure Gear and NICAS.

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