2008 SCS Rope Season

After the high of making US Team in Bouldering, Sidney went back to work at the discipline she wasn't sure how much she liked, Sport (ropes) climbing. From the beginning, Sidney loved bouldering but was kind of ho-hum about Sport climbing so I wasn't sure how well she'd do. She was now officially joined on team by her brother who finally got tired of just watching everyone else climb (much like Sidney got tired of watching everyone else skate at the beginning of our skate park adventures).

Chase got worked over pretty good by Sydney, the Everett team coach, those first few practices. Enough that he strained some muscles and missed the first comp at Stone Gardens in which Sidney finished in 2nd place. The next comp was at VW Everett and Chase did very well for his first rope comp finishing in 5th place. Sidney finished in 1st place for the very first time so that was special for her. Next was Edgeworks in Tacoma where Chase placed 6th and Sidney was 1st again. The last local comp was at Clubsport where Chase finished in 8th and Sidney was 2nd this time.

Both times that Sidney finished 2nd, the first place finisher was a very nice girl named Siena who was not at the comps where Sidney placed 1st. The comps were very close but Siena just edged out Sidney both times. This set the stage for a very good Regional comp at our very own Seattle VW. Chase did well in placing 7th. He got the last invite for Divisionals in Sport and qualified for Speed, too. Sidney and Siena both flashed all 3 routes which set up a Superfinal! Both girls climbed well but Sidney got quite a bit farther when Siena had a sequencing error halfway up the wall. So, Sidney qualified 1st in both Sport and Speed for Divisionals which was at the Momentum gym in Sandy, Utah.

At Divisionals, Chase ran into a couple of routes in qualifiers that didn't suit his climbing style. Namely routes that required endurance and power moves. He is much stronger now, but at that time he was still building up his strength and endurance. Chase tried his best but didn't make it out of qualifiers, finishing 18th. He did however finish 4th in Speed which gave him an invite to Nationals. Sidney climbed extremely well in placing 2nd in both Sport and Speed. She was barely edged out both times by Grace who is the same age as Sidney. Grace and her family are good, friendly people. I'm sure 10 years from now, Grace and Sidney will still be competing against each other in their friendly rivalry. Chase was a bit bummed about his result but was glad that he was going to Nationals in Speed. Sidney was very happy about her placings, too.

Nationals was in Sunnyvale, California at the Planet Granite gym. It's a nice, big facility where you can see most of the routes well. SCS Nationals are a 3 day event with Sport Qualifiers the first day. Sidney flashed the 1st route but had a problem on the 2nd route. If I remember correctly, you only had 5 minutes to complete each route that day. Sidney had a reach issue right after the start which took her a good 2 minutes to figure out. After getting by that, she didn't realize she was pressed for time and she never looked at the clock. She was only halfway through the route when the timer called for 1 minute left. Needless to say, she double-timed it up the route after that but timed out a little over three quarters up the route. When I met up with her right after that, I could tell she was crushed. She was fighting back tears because she knew she had made a big mistake. I gave her a hug to console her and then we waited for the results. She made Semi-Finals, qualifying 12th out of 18. She would have her work cut out for her but in retrospect, I'm glad that it happened because she really learned from that mistake. The 2nd day was Semi-Finals in Sport and Qualifers in Speed. Sidney did great on her Semis route but made a sequencing mistake with her foot that cost her some points. She moved up, though, qualifying in 8th out of the top 10 Finals spots. She also had two good runs in Speed and qualified 6th out of the 16 who made Semis. Chase tried his best but did not make it out of Qualifiers finishing 24th. Just like at ABS Nationals, Sidney qualified for Finals in 8th position so I took that as a good sign and I was right! She was the 3rd climber out and did awesome, making it 2 holds from the finish. After the other climbers were done and the scores came out, Sidney had finished 3rd! It was unbelievable how close the top 3 climbers were. The top 2 climbers (Grace won on countbacks all the way back to the 2nd qualifier) touched the 2nd to last hold and Sidney pulled to that hold but just missed touching usable surface. Very close. Right after that, Sidney had two Speed Semi runs. She was consistent and qualified for Finals in 6th out of 8 spots. In her Finals runs, she improved her time by a total of 4 seconds and finished in 5th place! So the final tally was that she finished 3rd in Sport and 5th in Speed. For US Team results, which are an aggregate score of ALL routes climbed for the comp, she finished 8th in Sport (4 spots out) and 5th in Speed (1 spot out). Both kids had a great time that weekend and did great! I was very proud of them but I was also glad the season was over because it was loooooong!