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[The following is a letter I wrote describing the Boy's 12 - 13
and Girls 11 & Under competition at the 2001 JCCA National Championship held in Ann Arbor, Michigan,
July 27th - 29th.]
Hello all,
I have not had a chance to talk to everyone about our perilous journey
across the mid-west, but I can report that we are all alive and scarred only
emotionally. :-) I suppose the signs were everywhere indicating that
trouble might be on the horizon. On our trip home from Memphis over the
July 4th holiday, our car was struck on the hood and grill by a softball
sized rock thrown from a highway mower. No one was injured (sans the new
Xterra) but it was obvious that had we arrived at that space in time a
half-second sooner someone might have been. Other signs, such as losing my
credit and debit cards two days before the trip to Nationals, should have
clued me in that we were in for a rough ride. I'm not superstitious, though
-- right?
The kids were in great shape and excited about going to the 2001 JCCA
Nationals in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Amanda really saw herself making it to
finals and even standing on the podium this year. Daniel, though somewhat
distracted by his new love of skate-boarding, was confident he would be able
to pull off another championship -- the third year in a row! Though still
only 11 years-old, Daniel moved up to the Boys 12-13 age category this year.
Amanda remained in the Girls 11-and-under age category. She still has one
more year to compete in that age group.
Sunday, July 22nd, while visiting Carol's parents on the way to Ann Arbor,
she decides to take the Xterra to visit her niece Susan in Edgerton, Kansas.
I had a funny feeling in my gut about her leaving, but I did not say
anything. Later that evening, Carol and her sister, Dianne, returned home
in tears. A deer had jumped out in front of them on a rural highway while
they were traveling at nearly 50 mph. In retrospect, it was good that they
were in the higher profile Xterra instead of her sister's Mazda. The front
end crumpled the way it was supposed to. The ABS worked perfectly, bringing
the "X" to a quick stop without swerving. No one suffered the least bit of
whiplash. The deer probably did not feel a thing.
So, we file an insurance claim, put the car in a body shop, and rent a PT
Cruiser before traipsing off to Indianapolis to visit my brother Tim,
sister-in-law Mary, and nieces Sarah and Emily. We had a great visit there,
and our kids enjoyed getting to know their cousins whom they rarely see. We
did the Make-a-Bear thing at the mall and took all of the kids indoor
climbing.
Thursday, we met up with Carol's parents in Ann Arbor at the Best Western
Executive Inn. This one in particular was somewhat run-down and the service
(or lack thereof) was terrible. Of course, we were told that they had just
changed management; however, two days with no room service, wet moldy
hallways, broken sinks and beds, was yet another distraction we could have
done without.
That evening I was invited to the JCCA Regional Coordinators dinner meeting
at the hotel, and I was very impressed by the quality of the volunteers in
that organization. Carol and I recently stepped up as the RC's for the
Colorado / New Mexico region. Let's hope we can hold a candle to the RC's
we met from the other regions. We have already thought of a dozen ways to
make the Colorado / New Mexico region more fun for the current members and
attractive to future members.
Friday morning, we got the kids checked in at the Planet Rock climbing gym
there in Ann Arbor. It was a big crowd this year with nearly 350
competitors registered. There were 45 boys in Daniel's division and 37
girls in Amanda's. Now, if you do the math and add all their parents and
grand parents and cousins you have a crowd large enough to concern the Ann
Arbor fire marshal, which is exactly what happened. Every day of the
competition, the fire marshal was there assessing the crowd, and every day
we were within seconds of being shut down. It made for a volatile
environment as irate parents confronted Planet Rock staff who were screaming
over the PA system for people to leave the building. The sad part about it
all was the kids who were waiting to climb could only hear the PA system and
were concerned that their parents would not be able to watch them climb.
This also resulted in a sultry gym environment as the doors were left wide
open to allow the flow of people moving through the gym hoping to see a
climber they might know on the wall.
After a late start of the qualifying round, Amanda's category finally began
to climb. She was 28th in the climbing order and they were taking six or
more minutes per climber. After hours of waiting in a jam-packed building,
through lunch and on into the afternoon, she was exhausted and ready to take
a nap. This was one planning mistake that could have been avoided by
adopting the schedule used at Richmond, Virginia in 1999 - by having an A
and a B group for each category that climbed at separate times of the day.
That might have kept the fire marshal from visiting us as well.
Amanda perked up when they called her name to be "on-deck". Several girls
had fallen on the first route, but it was well within Amanda's abilities and
she flashed her first qualifier route. She seemed relieved that it was out
of the way. However, fatigue and a bit of nervousness kept her from getting
past the half-way point of the second route -- a 50' slab to slightly
overhanging 5.11. The hard crux moves in the middle were spitting off many
of the girls and those that made it past them advanced to the semi-finals.
Amanda ended up in 23rd place, beating out 14 other girls, and she came
close to advancing to the semi-finals. This was a better placing than last
year but it was not what she was hoping for. Just a few weeks before
Nationals, Amanda climbed and repeated a 5.11d in her home gym. Despite her
finish, she is excited about competing next year. Being an older and more
mature 11-and-under competitor, she should do very well. I told her she
should be able to climb 5.12d by then, and she doesn't doubt it!
Daniel's wait was not quite as bad. He climbed 19th in the running order
and flashed both of his qualifier routes. However so did a number of boys
in his category. By the end of the day, he was in an 11-way tie for first
place going into the semi-finals. Interestingly, on his first and easiest
route his foot slipped on a polished foot-hold but he was able to catch
himself and recover. When he got down off the route he quickly motioned for
me to get him his new pair of Five-Ten Dragons which has better sticky
rubber on the soles. His feet stuck quite well on the second route, a 5.11,
that took a longer line up a vertical wall, then along the edge of an eight
foot roof before going vertical again to the finish.
Semi-final day was no better than the day before. It was chaotic, to say
the very least. This time, the entire upper viewing balcony was closed to
spectators forcing everyone to the lower level. The lower level now had
sections of the floor taped off to allow traffic to flow through the
building which pushed everyone further down into the climbing area in a
squashed sea of anxious, sweaty spectators. Staff would wade through the
crowd shouting for people to leave the building. The PA system blared the
news of the impending shut-down of the competition if people did not leave
the building. If I could sum up Nationals in one word it would be
"distracting". It was not an environment that was conducive to athletes
performing at their very best.
We had our own set of distractions, as well -- the deer, the hotel, the
grandparent's car battery dieing the night before finals. The one thing we
have always done with our kids at these events is prayed with them before
they compete. Not that they win, but that they know what they have in
Christ and that His peace and strength will sustain them through anything
they encounter. After all, climbing is just a metaphor for life and it
offers so many opportunities to learn from which we can apply to the "real"
world. Needless to say, instead of praying with them, we were distracted
and caught up in the circumstances that whirled around us.
Daniel still did very well on his semi-final route. The route was probably
45 feet in length, and at least a 5.12b in difficulty. The final crux of
the climb was at its finish and consisted of a no-feet, left-ward traverse
off a "sloper" handhold to a finishing hold that was blocked by a set of
anchor draws. The one foot hold that was anywhere near the finish was
poorly placed way out left around the overhanging buttress -- out of sight
and out of reach for a 4'11" climber.
Daniel climbed the semi-final route smoothly with no problems until the crux
at the finish. With no foot-hold, he was not able to move off the "sloper"
to make the launch for the finishing hold. Nevertheless, after the final
climber in his age category had climbed, Daniel found himself solidly in
first place. We later found out that only one other climber, Ethan Pringle
(14-15), was able to finish that route, and Daniel had the second highest
attempt on it. Ethan is a crowd favorite that rarely every falls in
competitions.
Sunday, we got Grandpa's car jump-started and headed off for a real
breakfast. We met Landon and Chauncey Cox, our friends from Colorado
Springs and had a fun breakfast at Jonathan's near the gym (good eats).
Chauncey finished in 4th place this year, and she still has two years to
compete in the 11-and-under category!
Daniel was feeling confident going into finals and was more concerned about
flashing the 60 foot route (a 5.13a/b) than he was about wining or losing
the competition. He was hoping he would get to climb this route which the
Boys 16-17 year-old category climbed the day before. Being in an older age
category now, Daniel was finally getting to climb a "steep" route with its
large roof problem some 30 feet off the deck. This was his kind-of route!
Ten boys advanced to the final round of competition. Being in first place,
Daniel had to wait and climb the route last. Ben, his climbing buddy, was
tied for fourth place, so we got to see him climb before Daniel. Just like
two years ago in Richmond, we anticipated Ben being the "come back kid" and
finishing second to Daniel -- they even talked about it playing out that way
in ISO. Ben came out and climbed solidly all the way to the big roof. He
set himself to move out under the roof, but was not able to stick the first
move. However, he had set a new high point on the route! We all cheered
for Ben as he lowered to the mats, unsure of where his effort might place
him, but sure that he had done well.
The next two competitors came out to climb but were unable to get past Ben's
high point. (This really is a game of "King of the Mountain," as each kid
tries to knock the other one off.) Now, Ben has always had to play "second
fiddle" to Daniel in the alternate years that they compete together.
Knowing this, we figured Daniel could better Ben's high point or even flash
the route, so it was just a matter of waiting for him to come out and do it.
I got the camera rolling and watched as he chalked up and read the route.
He started out on the right-ward traverse at the bottom of the route looking
very smooth as usual.
Now, Daniel has always been a meticulous climber. Slow and deliberate, his
footwork is calculated and he rarely makes a mistake in competitions.
Today, however, he made the one mistake that no one ever imagined that
Daniel would make -- his foot slipped on a polished foothold. Normally, you
can recover from a slip by simply holding on tight with the hands until the
foot is back on the wall. This usually costs the climber some energy that
is better spent on the crux sections of the route, but in this case, the
hand holds were turned vertically and were meant to be laid off of or
"gastoned". When the feet slip in this situation there is nothing to hold
on to and the body plummets.
And that is what he did. Plummeting all of two feet to the mat below,
Daniel crossed his arms as he usually does when he is upset. There was a
huge sigh that came from those who were able to be in the gym to watch him
climb. I felt nothing at first, but said what naturally came to my lips,
"Good try Daniel, good try." I closed up my video camera and rose to follow
him out of the building.
There were so many competitors who came up to console him afterwards. Ben's
father, Ken, graciously came over to offer his condolences. He knew it was
just a fluke and he genuinely felt bad for Daniel. Tim Harrington, who's
daughter Emily had a similar experience two years ago, came up with the
insightful words, "It'll never happen again." It was hard to see Daniel
work through this time of trying to comprehend what just took place -- and
to do so in the presence of so many of his peers. What was to be a sure
thing came to nothing in just a moment in time. I tried to emphasize with
Daniel that he was still an awesome climber and he had a great track record
to prove it. Given another shot he surely would have flashed the route. It
was hard to hold back the tears, though -- not because he lost a
competition, but because it was time for him to learn such a hard lesson.
It will only make him a better climber, a better person, in the end.
Because he fell so low on the route, he finished the competition in eighth
place and did not qualify for the U.S. team this year. Daniel now has a
real appreciation for what he has accomplished two years in a row, and
naturally, he wants it back. He was even talking of training year-round on
the trip home, and is psyched about doing some hard outdoor climbing. We
have trips to Wild Iris in Wyoming and to Rifle planned before school starts
up again. Another bright side to all of this is that his best friend ended
up taking first place, and they both have a renewed excitement about
climbing. Ben was considering quitting the climbing team earlier this year.
So, we are back home, and letting time do its thing. We also have allot of
planning to do as Regional Coordinators. Our main goal is to remove some of
the negative competitiveness that crept into our region between climbers
from different gyms, and to restore what first attracted us to the JCCA -- a
sense of community and an extraordinary sportsmanship between the
competitors unlike anything we have seen in other sports.
Best regards to all,
Steve
PS: We took a three day climbing trip to Wild Iris in Wyoming where Daniel
and Ben red-pointed a number of climbs, including a 5.12a/b called "Ruby Shooter".
We are off to Rifle this weekend where Daniel has a list of 5.12's he wants to do.
He has really been motivated to climb since his experience at Nationals.
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