MCC Lead Comp 1st Place - Tom Bonnert

            Last weekend saw me heading back to a harness and a rope. Since finishing my last junior lead comp the other month I decided that I would have a new focus in climbing and change disciplines to bouldering for the coming 2014 comp season. After not doing any lead training for the last couple of months I was not that hopeful for stamina but I was feeling as strong as ever. Hopefully that would prevail.

            I arrived on the day and the routes looked pretty spicy. Qualification consisted of ten routes that ranged from F5+ to F8a. Only your best three scores would count to your qualification score so tactics were to be used, especially as I would need some energy if I made finals. I went for the tactic of climbing very fast and using my strength to my advantage. This worked well and flashed the F6c, F7a and F7b. I had a quick play on the F8a and then called it a day as I had made the finals. Wasn’t worth the energy of going for the F7c.

            The finals looked absolutely brick hard. This for me was exactly what I was hoping for. I had a good isolation and warmed up well for the route. I came out and gave it a pretty good go. Every move felt very hard. Felt about V6 into very poor rest into V7 into very poor rest into V7… The second V7 section was where I was spat off. But it was enough to take the win.

Effort to the other guys competing, especially Jake Oughton who was hot on my heals all day… And thanks to the guys at MCC for putting on an awesome day.