On catching the sun...

Looks like my concerns about the strength of the sun yesterday morning were well grounded.

After hanging around, post-run, to watch the first part of the DWS qualifiers, I'd hoped the the wispy cloud might have been enough to keep the UV off — I hadn't planned on staying long so I hadn't applied a thick layer of sun block as I normally do when I'm out in short sleeves during the day — but getting ready to run this morning, I noticed some definite pink areas around my neck and on my shoulders where my top had left me exposed.

Fortunately it doesn't seem to be all that bad as these things go: reddening rather than full-on burns and only in a couple of places — I'm not sure why my upper arms have come through unscathed — but it's not exactly idea. But on the plus side, I now have concrete proof that my trusty tank top is UV-proof, otherwise all-over lobster coloured...

Deep Water Solo 2016: Female Semi-Finals

Second day of Exeter's third Deep Water Solo competition at the Quay, with some very hard problems quickly separating out six finalists in each category.

This gives a pretty decent impression of the wall and of the three different semi-final problems, with the difficulties increasing from left to right. The green routes were climbed by the U16 girls, the red by the U16 boys and by the women, with the men climbing on blue. The problems were graded very hard, extremely hard, and outright impossible by the setters, with even the strongest of competitors struggling and a very limited number of tops; indeed nobody manage to send the final route, although two of the men managed to touch the last hold.

The semi-final problems in all their glory. Note the umbrella on the far left, positioned to keep the rain off the finishing hold of the first problem.

With the morning taken up with the under sixteens, the open competition started with the women at around 12:30 and it quickly became apparent just how hard the problems were.

Rhoslyn Frughniet tops the first problem under the watchful eyes of the route setters...

The second problem featured an early dyno which threw a few of the competitors, a powerful move to a taijitu volume, with slopers on the head wall:

Eugenie Lee going up to some truly terrible slopers on the second problem.

The final move off the spiderweb hold called for careful balance and a big commit. Rhos did the move extremely dynamically:

Rhos Frughniet matches the final hold with a dyno

While Eugenia went more statically, also topping the route.

The weather by this point was rather wet, as can be seen from the water running off the front of the awning which, thankfully, extended several feet out in front of the wall keeping the climbers dry. Kudos to whoever decided to rig the tarpaulins up in advance — last year the women's semis had to be put on hold for an hour or two while a roof was rigged up to keep the rain off; I suspect the extremely cold and unpleasant conditions experienced by some of last years semi-finalists might explain why more than few of them chose not to enter this year.

Having arrived in bright sun, I'd managed to slip into a shadey spot which also turned out to be out of the rain, when it arrived in earnest.

Tom, on the cherry picker on the other side of the dock, was slightly more exposed than the the rest of us.

Fortunately the showers soon passed and the competition was not badly impacted thanks the careful deployment of an umbrella. Emma Twyford, one of the first to make it on the top section of the route, reported some problems with wet holds and the route setters sprung into action, drying them with chalk and scrubbling off the residue.

Emma was obviously pleased to have made it to the top!

Rhos also making it three for three in the semi-finals.

And with the women's finals decided, we moved straight into the men's semi-finals...

Deep Water Solo 2016: Male Semi-Finals

The male semi-finals featured some extremely strong climbers and the setters had managed to come up with some formidable hard problems to seperate them out. Even the first problems was pretty brutal, featuring a hand-jam early on:

Local hero Jacob Straw demonstrates the hand-jam...

The head wall featured a powerful compression move:

Tom Bunn demonstrates the compression move on the top section...

Followed by a dyno to the big blue volume for the finish.

Neil Gresham controls the swing on the last move after powering up the problem in less than a minute.

Nathan Phillips tops the first problem against a the picturesque backdrop that is Exeter riverside.

At this point, with the rain slackening, assistant judge Bingo decided to assess the mood in the audience:


Newberry and Frughniet were obviously immune to the rain — although as a good Cardiffian, you'd expect Rhos to have a high tolerance for precipitation; I remember being shocked, my first year there, by quite how much rainful the city got and quite how often it seemed to show up. Not, of course, that Exeter is any drier...


The second route found Mikey Cleverdon very much in his element. First there were a couple of the sort of powerful dynamic moves that he usually has for breakfast:


Then a nice middle section:


Followed by a convenient rest, which provided a perfect opportunity to work his home crowd up into frenzy:


The afternoon also featured some truly spectular costume choices on the parts of some of the competitors. This amazing, shimmery ensemble featured in yesterday's qualies and seems to have survived its dip in the River Exe:


While this competitor deserves nothing but greatest of respect, firstly for sticking the amazing dyno and secondly for eschewing the standard topless look of most of the entrants — as chosen by the climber on the left — in favour of a full-on fairy costume complete with wings!



The final problem in the men's semi-finals opened with a difficult dyno that caused more than a few of the competitors to drop straight into the drink.

Tom Bunn shows how to control the swing on the first move — effectively a swinging jump from the red smiley face to the blue jug with an intermediate step on the second orange volume. The black object on the bottom edge is a strategically placed bouldering mat intended to deflect climbers into the water, should they slip off the hold.

After sticking a big long pinch on the roof and getting the feet out, the next move went up to a sloper and then to a big round hold on a volume above the overhang. Subsequent moves required a heel-hook match followed by a move up to a particularly tiny crimp.

Local hero Rory Bascombe about to go for the tiny blue crimp at the top of the picture...

Rory roars his way up to a terrible sloper.

The next step involves going out right to the tiny crimp to finish rocking on to the right foot, followed by a delicate move up to a similarly bad crimp on the top of the volume. Then it's out right to match both hands on another bad sloper with the feet on the first blue hold above the overhang, and then a very hard pop for final little pocket to finish. The problem was so hard that none of the competitors managed to stick the last move — although two got close enough to touch the final hold.

Within seconds of the last competitors going through, the barge was swung round to face the wharf to allow the setters to strip the wall and reset it ready for the finals, giving the rest of us an hour and a half to wander round and amuse ourselves until the start of the finals.

Deep Water Solo 2016: Finals

As per last year's competition, this year's final was a speed showdown between the six top finishers. Coming out from isolation, the climbers had a few minutes of inspection before heading backstage ahead of the event.

First out where the U16s who powered through their first attempts on the route, followed by the open female and male groups. After the first round, the three slowest competitors were eliminated, with the top three moving through into the final round. There was a strong local showing in the finals and the roars from the crowd when Rhos Frughniet and Alex Waterhouse were climbing could of knocked your socks off.

After a short rest while the other groups were climbing, the final finalists came out and repeated their routes, this time even faster, to decide their place on the podium. As the numbers were being written up on the scoreboard — the MC had been ticked off by the head judge for reading out the results, presumably because the competitors were not supposed to know what they were aiming for — you could have cut the air with a knife. And the reactions when it was announced that Alex had come second to Matt Varela-Christie in the men's comp and Rhos had won the women's were overwhelming.

As someone said afterwards: it's really exciting when you know the people involved.