Since it’s inception in 1991 (or was it 1992?) The question is; was the British Open at Birmingham 1991, actually a British Championship!! The BLCC (British lead climbing championships) was the main national championship and it is only since the BBC (British bouldering championships) has matured that the BLCC has had to share centre stage.
It has proved to be a very popular event but has also seen some changes. Historically, the BLCC has always been a multi-round series but in 2007 the BLCC became a single event. It was also the first time it was held in front of a non-climbing audience at the Blackpool Towers in July 2007.
But whether there is one round or four, there are always a few basics that are the same every year.
- The outcome of the BLCC is always to ascertain the national lead champions; senior male and female, junior boy and girl.
- The competition is open to anyone. There is no qualification process to gain entry into the BLCC.
- The competition will be held on one of the nation's premier climbing walls.
- All competitors must climb in the qualification rounds of the BLCC to gain a place in the final.
The BLCC formerly used a format that was essentially the same as that of IFSC international leading competitions. That is to say all rounds of the competition were on-sight. The climbers were kept in an isolation zone and were not allowed to watch each other climb.
However this has changed and the BLCC now uses a format that is the same as the European Youth Series; two routes are climbed by all competitors during the qualification rounds, these are climbed ‘flash’.
I.E. The routes are demonstrated by the national routes setters and the climbers watch the demo and then watch eachother. The order is changed for the second route to maintain fairness. The climbers who qualify through to the final are put into an isolation zone and the final routes are climbed on-sight.
The basis for ‘scoring’ in the BLCC (and other leading competitions) is fairly simple. The higher up the route the more ‘points’ you gain.
Each hold is assigned a score or number. If you touch this hold (e.g. hold 25) then you get credited with '25-'. If you hold this hold you get '25'. If you make progress towards the next hold (but don’t touch it) you get '25+'. The actual ranking for the qualification round is a bit more complicated though, with square roots of the multiple of the ranking from each qualification coming into play.
Time does not have a bearing on the score but there is always a maximum time given by the chief judge in which the climbers must complete the route. If the climber is still climbing when this time period has elapsed (normally 6-8 minutes), they will be asked to stop climbing and their score will be taken from the highest point they reached at the end of the stated time period.
If you would like to know even more, you can download the rules here.
So there you have the BLCC in a nutshell, we look forward to welcoming new and established competitors to the next BLCC.