Asian Youth Championships 2012, Hamedan, Iran

Came back a couple of weeks ago from the Asian Youth Championships held in the city of Hamedan in Iran. Gabriel Tay was the interim General Manager whilst i went up there in the capacity of the youth team Coach. Forming up the Singapore Youth Team will be Nadrah and Vanessa from Outram Secondary, Iris and Kenneth from Xin Min Secondary and my own student, Desky from Changkat Changi Secondary.

I had initially thought that this would be a good break from work but i was in for a surprise....

 Team Singapore at the Departure Hall!

We were held back by delays at the transit in KL and upon arrival in the capital of Iran, Tehran, we were delayed by another hour or so at the airport due to visa problems. We only arrived in Hamedan after a torturous 3 hr ride, at about 5am in the morning! So it was only 1 hr of sleep before everyone rose for breakfast and head out to the competition venue for the qualifying round which began at 9am.

 The competition wall - HUGE, about 18-20m high

The competition walls was HUGE and mightily impressive, though somewhat mostly flat on most sections except for the final 8 metres at the top. Having a route that reaches the top will consist of at least 40-50 plus moves!

 Singapore's Flag Bearer - Kenneth Lim

Results for our young climbers can be view on the IFSC website but all in all, the overall result of our climbers was O-K. As usual, the powerhouses of Asia, Japan and Korea swept most of the top 3 placings for Lead climbing. Our youth climbers may be one of the best within their respective age groups in Singapore but compared to the Top 3 of Asia, we are still quite far away.

 The kids were shack out on the 1st day there!

Security was pretty tight throughout the event as the organisers did not want anything to happen to us. Even when we want to walk out as a group for a stroll around the hotel, we had to be accompanied by some form of security. As such, everyday was spent at the competition venue and the hotel. We would usually move out to the comp venue at 7am and reach back to the hotel by 10-11pm for dinner. Needless to say most of us were suffering from sleep deprivation.

 My fav picture - everyone's happy!

The qualifications consisted of 2 routes, flashed format. Routes were mostly easy with all climbs ending around the 15 metre mark on the wall. Routes for the Semis were longer with the Finals being the longest which extended all the way to the top! At almost 55 moves, completing the route was akin to climbing the 15m wall in Yishun Safra continuously twice! Needless to say most of our young climbers fell off around the 30th or 30+ move on most of their climbs. This is probably due to them training on routes that consist of 30 moves or less back in Singapore.

 Lunch time at a local restaurant in Hamedan, Iran

The handholds on all routes including the finals were mostly good. The sequences were straight forward and easy to read, with no tricks. What our climbers lacked was anaerobic endurance. I reckon to make it into the Top 3, the girls will have to be comfortably onsighting 7b with the guys at about 7c. This figure is going to increase drastically at the World Youth Championships held at the end of August in Singapore. The qualifying climbs alone for all categories is unlikely be less than 7a+/b. With the top climbers (including the girls) capable of onsighting 8As comfortably, you can expect the routes to be reasonably tough!

 Team Singapore

As of now, the only commercial gym with enough hard and QUALITY routes suitable for our youths to train for WYC is at Yishun Safra, thanks to Paul who has taken time out to manage the route setting there. There are plenty of hard 6s and some 7s. More 7s and 8s are definitely needed. It would be fantastic if we can have a wall akin to Putrajaya, but a decent bouldering wall is also sufficient for training anaerobic endurance like what the top World Cup climbers do.

Team Singapore again......

We also managed to snuck out for some outdoor bouldering in the countryside for a couple of hours on our last day. It wasn't much but Gabriel and i thought it sure beats bringing the team out for some shopping in town! Besides, most of them hardly climbed on real rock before!

It was definitely a good experience for our young climbers who were privileged to represent our nation and travel overseas for an International competition and see where they stand amongst their peers in Asia. Hopefully this will help spur them on to train harder!