Month: September 2019

Victoria continues to soar with two Victorians pushing the limits at the elite level.  Campbell Harrison and Oceana Mackenzie have had an excellent year representing Australia both finishing with the highest Australian combined rank at the recent IFSC World Championships.

To add to their stellar year, both Harrison and Mackenzie have been selected to represent Australia at the World Beach Games being held in Doha, Qatar from 12 – 16 October, 2019. The pair will be participating in bouldering on 13 October and will be supported by National Boulder Coach Will Hammersla – another Victorian!

To read more from the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC), click here.

The World Beach Games will include 14 sports with more than 1200 athletes from around the globe competing.  The Australian team will have representation in Beach Volleyball, Karate, Sailing, Swimming, Sport Climbing, Beach Handball and Water Skiing.

September has been crammed with Boulder State Titles around Australia including our very own!

Starting in NSW/ACT on Saturday 7 September, 2019 two youth athletes made the trip to NSW to compete: Sam Gullifer who finished 4th in Youth A Male and Maya Stasiuk finishing 1st in Youth C Female. The next State Titles was the Open Boulder Titles held in QLD on Saturday 14 September which did not have representation from Victoria on this occasion.

Last weekend was the Victorian State Titles which board member Yvette Harrison shared with us:

“The Victorian State Titles were held on Saturday with over 100 climbers competing at Northside Boulders Brunswick. From the littlest tackers to the older masters category everyone had a great day thanks to the great setting from our interstate head setter Emma Horan and her team.

The youth categories saw all the gyms represented on the podium and we thank the interstate competitors for coming to participate and get some competition experience up their sleeves and perhaps catch a random prize from our awesome sponsors: Climbing meta, Roctic Climbing, ChalkUp Climbing, Sea to Summit Distribution Australia, Black Diamond, Carman’s Kitchen and Tokyo Powder Industries.

The Opens did not disappoint through finals with plenty of excitement from all the athletes. Top Victorian athletes were Oceana Mackenzie 1st, Sarah Davies 2nd and Grace Crowley 3rd for Open A Female. And in Open A Male: Campbell Harrison 1st, Ned Middlehurst 2nd and Nick Churchill 3rd.

To view full results, click here.

Thank you again to our volunteers. Without you all these events cannot run as smoothly as they do. Thank you to Northside for hosting this event, your generosity is much appreciated and thank you to our sponsors for your generous prize donations.”

– Yvette Harrison, Sport Climbing Victoria Board Member

And to cap off the month Tasmania will be holding the final states of the month from 27 – 28 September, 2019.  Good luck to all the athletes!

The Youth Championships wrapped up last month on 31 August, 2019 in Arco, Italy.

Our Victorian athletes fought hard with Ned Middlehurst coming 57th in Junior Male Boulder; Oliver Burch finished 65th in Youth A Male Speed with a time of 13.68seconds and Mathew Austin (also Youth A Male) set a new male Australian speed record of 8.124seconds which lasted a day, when QLD athlete Sam Lavender pipped Austin at the post with a new male Australian record of 8.111seconds.

All eyes were on Angie Scarth-Johnson from NSW who put on a strong performance for the green and gold.  In lead Scarth-Johnson finished in 10th and in boulder made it all the way to finals with a final place of 4th in a nail-biter that came down to waiting to see how the second last athlete performed to decide if she would make the podium! Victorians flocked to Urban Climb – Collingwood to watch the young gun compete. Scarth-Johnson finished with a combined score of 5th.

Congratulations to all the Youth athletes in their amazing performances!

For full results, click here.