The venue in Laval during Boys youth A and junior qualifiers.

As I sit here typing back at home in Sheffield, feeling like I’ve finally caught up on some sleep, it already seems like a long time ago that I was in Laval at the European Youth Cup with the GB junior team, and that Nathan Phillips won the first ever European gold!

This has been my first trip away with the team as a chaperone along with Tom and Michelle Greenall and Clive Phillips (although my badge said coach, my French wasn’t good enough to correct them…well that’s my story and I’m sticking to it) and it was great to spend some time with such an inspirational and motivated team. For some it was their first European bouldering competition, and for others this was the last one of several in the season. I’d been really looking forward to being involved, and had some games up my sleeve for the days that the team weren’t competing. I think the peg game of attaching a peg to someone’s clothes without them noticing was the favorite with Tom Greenall, the team manager, bearing the brunt of the pegging.

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Although he escaped lightly with a not so well planned team attack during the other game of 'assassin', where you had to eliminate your target with a projectile weapon of a sock or a hand attack with a spoon. I'd read that these games were supposed to develop 'a healthy level of paranoia' which I thought could only be a positive thing.

I think as a chaperone the hardest bit of any trip is getting them to the venues unscathed and back home in one piece. The trip from the airport to the hotel seem fraught with obstacles, but we finally made it even though the airport seemed to think one sign throughout the whole of terminals 1 and 3 was enough for us to find the hire cars, and the whole of Paris seemed to be going the same way as us once we'd hit the road! But eventually we all made it to the very nice Kyriad hotel.

Friday was a general games and sorting out day before the technical meeting and opening ceremony. It was great to see the teams all up on the stage and the countries taking part. We also met up with one of the GB para climbers Sianagh who was competing at the weekend too but sadly not at the same venue at the same time.

The tiny eclairs were much appreciated.

Saturday was the first competition day with Youth A and the Juniors qualifying and finals taking place. The qualifiers comprised of eight problems with everyone giving it their all. Anyone in the team not competing was there to help those climbing when they needed it and make sure they had enough water, food and psyche. Good thing I had some emergency chocolate pancakes in my bag! I had to sneak off during the boys qualifier to help buy provisions for the next couple of days, so sadly missed some of the action but the girls were there to cheer the boys on.

Qualifying

Nathan had qualified in 5th for the finals so we all headed back to the hotel for a break and a chill out before it all began. It felt like we barely sat down before it was time for Nathan to go into isolation, the youth B team members to have dinner and me and Michelle to head back to the venue with the rest of the team to watch the youth A and Junior finals!
The 3 block finals were really exciting to watch and we did our fair share of cheering, but we were definitely the loudest team there when Nathan took to the stage. It was a nail biting final and I cheered myself hoarse, we’d worked out the scores during the final and were sure nathan had taken silver. Then Michael dropped the last problem…this got us all glued to the stage….then he dropped it again…we all watched the seconds tick by thinking he’d get it on the next go…then the buzzer went. It took a few seconds to sink in before we all started cheering again, Nathan had just won GB’s first ever European gold!!

Nathan takes Gold!

It was an incredibly psyched team at dinner that eve ready for the youth B qualifiers the next day.

Michelle and I had an early start the next day to take the girls to the other venue half an hour north of Laval for their qualifiers. Despite the pea soup fog we made it in good time and got the girls warmed up and ready for the comp. The problems looked really good and we saw some awesome moves from both Sidonie and Alexia. The time seemed to shoot past and before we knew it the girls time was up and the boys were on. The team did an incredible job of supporting the climbers and I heard several say they wouldn’t have done so well if it hadn’t been for the team spurring them on. This time we had two in the finals, Pete and William so had to make a move back to Laval to get them into isolation. Tom stayed with the boys go get them warmed up and ready for the final so we all sat on the steps and ate baguettes and played ball, although I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone a eat as much cheese as alex in one sitting…

Before too long it was final time, we all got front row seats and raised the roof when Pete and William came on. It was another nail biting final and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone dig so deep and just keep trying to finish a problem, inspiring stuff from our two finalists. Will finished in third and Pete in fifth so it was great to see another Brit on the podium 🙂

The competition finished with lots of speeches (mostly in French) and thanks to the team of brushes and helpers, of which there were way more that we realised!

We finished the weekend off with a celebration meal, finally managing to catch up with Sianagh who won bronze in the para bouldering with Fran Brown, fellow teammate taking gold.
Back at the hotel the team (very successfully) surprised nathan with a cake for being such an inspiring captain over the last year as he will now move up into the senior category next year. We left the team to celebrate and whilst discussing the weekend over cups of tea, realised what an amazing bunch of young people we’d brought to Laval and how well as a team they had all performed. Clive and Tom have done an incredible job of building up such a fab team and I feel very privileged to have been involved even in a small way, so bring on 2014!

To the rest of Europe: Are you ready?

Full result list for GB Juniors, A and B:

Juniors
Nathan Phillips 1st
Jennifer Wood 8th

Youth A
Hamish Potokar 8th
Alex Watherhouse 15th
Tara Hayes 9th
Molly Thompson-Smith 11th
Rachel Carr 13th
Gracie Martin 16th

Youth B
Alexia Basch 7th
Sidonie Graham 17th
Edward Mabon 7th
James Mabon 18th
William Bosi 3rd
Pete Dawson 5th