Juneau Indoor Climbing Competition (Feb 2106)

Fifteen athletes from Whitehorse participated at the Annual Juneau Indoor Climbing competition at the Rock Dump Indoor wall.

There was about 50 participants to the event, with 13 youths from the Yukon Youth climbing team as well as 2 adults participating. There was only one open category. The competition was tough for the youth. There was at least 50 boulder problems set-up by the gym from V0 to possibly V7 being some of the hardest problems. To top-up the fun, the gym organized a speed climbing event for the first time. Olcay, the manager of the gym, and his team worked many hours to offer a great variety of problems, and lodged the entire team for the three nights we spend in Juneau. Hats off Olcay!

Julian Beairsto

Pelly Vincent-Braun

The overall male winner of the competition was Maxime Parker, coach and former athlete of the Yukon Youth Team. The second place was and athletes from Juneau. The Yukon was well represented with the third place of Tomas Tokic. Tomas had the title for the Yukon bouldering championship held in December 2015 at FH Collins. Julian Beairsto and Pelly VincenT-Braun took 5th and 6th place. Luke Bakica did excellent for his first Indoor competition with a 7th place.

On the female side we had Fionnuala Marion (Whitehorse) with a 7th place and Julia Frasher (Whitehorse) with a 9th place. Sya Berkman (Whitehorse) took the 11th position in the female open. Erin Meade, Casysha Fleischman and Kelsey Stockert, all from Juneau, took first, second and third respectively.

Yukon rep team in Juneau

Next year we are hoping to invite the junior and adult athletes from Juneau to compete in an event in one of the bouldering gym we have in Whitehorse (Porter Creek or the Yukon College). The new gym at Porter Creek has allowed a fast improvement in technique and strength for our local athlete due to the steep angles of the wall, which allows to set-up harder problems. At this point we are running out of space for our athletes, as the wall can support about 20 athletes training in the same time. I am hoping to get a larger wall to increase the participation of the youth in the sport. Next year all our 20 athletes from FH are staying in the territory, and more athletes from PC will join the team for sure. It will be tight and we will have to be creative for training. Congratulation to all athletes that participated to the annual Juneau comp event 2016!