17-Year-Old Leads into Semis at NACS
Olympian Alannah Yip heads into semis in second while the top four men are separated only by attempts at Kanata's NACS.
The North American Cup Series provides athletes across the US and Canada additional opportunities to compete against some of the best climbers in the continent. Yesterday saw the beginning of Canada’s first bouldering competition of the Series.
Qualifiers took over most of the morning and continued into the afternoon. Unlike many competitions, the boulder problems appeared on YouTube in advance of the competition. This suggested that the scramble-flash format of the qualifying round would depart from an onsite competition.
Athletes were given three hours to climb the eight boulder problems in their category. Scramble means that climbers can move between the problems in whatever manner they might like. To that effect, they had eight attempts within that period.
With that said, each problem retains two places for scoring: a Zone and a Top. The Zone generally appears halfway up the climb where the Top is the final hold. In the women’s field, only one woman attained all eight Tops and Zones. 17-year-old Sydney Park will enter this morning’s semi-final in first position.
The Ontario athlete has long offered consistent performances in her competitions, but to compete so well in such a strong field in her first bouldering competition since the pandemic, speaks to her ability. The Joe Rockhead’s employee and Ontario local looks promising for this season.
Following Park, Olympian Alannah Yip earned seven Tops and eight Zones entering semi-finals in second a strong performance following a break from the Olympic circuit. Yip has spent much of her last month setting at the new Boiler Room location with teammate Sean McColl.
Quebec’s Babette Roy and Alberta’s Paige Boklaschuk numbered third and fourth in the field, earning the same number of Tops and Zones as Yip. They climbed to their positions with more attempts than the Olympian.
Concluding the top six, Indiana Chapman and Jillian Gerlitz earned fifth and sixth respectively. Other names of note from these last NACS events that will move through to semi-finals include Madison Fischer, Isis Rothfork, Becca Frangos, Ashley Fisher, Riley Galloway, Zoe Beauchemin and Bronwen Karnis. The exhausting qualification format leaves a lot of room for the standings to shift in the upcoming rounds.
The men came out next and offered and equally stacked field. American Isaac Leff lead the field with eight tops and eight zones, but he was not alone. The top four climbers were separated only by attempts. Raymond Hansen, Lucas Uchida, and Samuel Tiukuvaara each climbed all eight problems with varying numbers of attempts.
The men’s field was so tight that the next eight climbers each earned seven tops. Of those moving onto semi-finals, most every climber has earned some sort of notice in Canadian or American climbing news.
Victor and Oscar Baudrand each had strong World Cup seasons this last year, and are into semis in fifth and seventh. Splitting them, BC powerhouse Brennan Doyle earned sixth. Of those moving forward, Yves Gravelle might make the most experienced semi-finalist, and his performance is always a crowd favourite.
Click here to watch the livestream, set to begin ta 9:30 am.
Women Advancing to Semis
1 – Sydney Park
2 – Alannah Yip
3 – Babette Roy
4 – Paige Boklaschuk
5 – Indiana Chapman
6 – Jillian Gerlitz
7 – Madison Fischer
8 – Margaret Bupp
9 – Maggie Hammer
10 – Isis Rothfork
11 – Becca Frangos
12 – Ashley Fisher
13 – Chloe Earle
14 – Lia Wieckowski
15 – Riley Galloway
16 – Zoe Beauchemin
17 – Bronwen Karnis
18 – Emma Wetsel
19 – Ella Von Dungen
20 – Emilia Callanan
Men Advancing to Semis
1 – Isaac Leff
2 – Raymond Hansen
3 – Lucas Uchida
4 – Samule Tiukuvaara
5 – Victor Baudrand
6 – Brennan Doyle
7 – Oscar Baudrand
8 – Matthew Rodriguez
9 – Nathan Smith
10 – Iva Luo
11 – Ethan Hoffman
12 – Zach Richardson
13 – Finn Battersby
14 – Adam Shahar
15 – Anant Mathur
16 – Kindar McNamee
17 – Guy McNamee
18 – Tosh Sherkat
19 – Yves Gravelle
20 – Benn Wheeler
Featured image from the CEC by Philip Quade.
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