Gladiator Finals Open Final Results!

Ian Powell and Spencer Pitman battling it out.

Ok, so the comp just got over and man was it exciting!  Gladiator Jousting, 230 adult competitors and over 150 youth competitors. Food, beer, a huge raffle, and of course beats from rising star DJ Dirt Monkey and a rockin’ pro final! More pictures, full results, and a rundown will come soon, but for tonight here’re the top 3 from the Open Final.

Women’s Final Top 3

Megan Mascarenas eyeing the committing dyno that she stuck one handed to flash the boulder and win the comp.

1. Megan Mascarenas!  For the first time this season Megan qualified for finals in 3rd instead of 1st. Nevertheless, Megan handily flashed the final to secure her fourth win in the four-comp Spot Bouldering Series 7, making her the overall champion of the series and igniting a fire in the crowd who cheered loudly as Megan stuck a huge committing dyno and finished the boulder.

2. Nina Williams!  Nina was looking really strong and she qualified for finals in 1st place for the first time this season. She looked strong but it took her two tries to make the 2nd and final send of the final problem for 2nd place overall behind Megan. Nice job Nina!

Chauncey Cox about to static her way through the dyno.

3. Chauncenia Cox!  Chauncey hasn’t been at a Spot comp so far this season but she came on with a vengeance to qualify in 2nd and end up in 3rd overall after statically controlling the dyno stick hold with her off-hand but not being able to move from the position to match it. Thanks for coming out Chauncey!

 

Men’s Top 3

Spot Setter (but not for this comp) and Team ABC Boulder Coach Garrett Gregor came out and gave the best flash burn on the problem to control these slopers and the win.

1. Garrett Gregor!  Qualified in 5th, but came out and gave a great flash burn to control hold #8 on his first try. He and the 2nd and 3rd place finishers all made good tries to stick the blue pinch that is the last hold on the problem, but nobody could stay on it so Garrett took the win. Nice job Garrett!!!

First-place qualifier Jon Cardwell came close to sending the final and taking the win but he couldn't quite stick the blue pinch to seal the deal.

2. Jon Cardwell!  Jon qualified in 1st over Matty Hong by a few falls. Both sent O10, O9, O8, O7, and O6 and still had enough energy to perform strongly in finals.

3. Matty Hong! Like Jon and Garrett, Matty fell trying to get a hold of that last little blue pinch. They gave the crowd a good show, and hopefully one of these guys will come back and send this rig soon before Carlo gets home from Boston.

More to come tomorrow. But until then, contemplate this:

Excuse us, Miss, what, exactly, do you think you're doing?

DRCC Women’s Semifinals Video

The setters all attended semifinals so we could get a good feel for how the competitors were climbing and make sure we didn’t need to make any tweaks to the difficulty of the finals problems.  I brought the little Flip camera my mom gave me for my birthday and shot some video of various people climbing various problems.  This video is of the DRCC Women’s Semifinals problems (though the first two are non-DRCC cause we didn’t have enough holds).  Most of the women who competed are in it, though I missed Audrey Sniezek and Kristen Felix–sorry girls!  The edit is pretty rough cause I didn’t have a ton of time, and I decided that comp background noises would give you a better feel for how things were going than a techno track would, so the original noise is in all the clips.  I’ll put a guys one together when I have time. Enjoy!

More Battle in The Bubble!!!

Shannon Forsman with a good show on Women's 1

Photos, videos, and reviews of The Battle in The Bubble are pouring in.  It’s worth noting that there was a mistake on the original finals score posting–Chauncy Cox ended up in 4th and Flannery Shay-Nemirow was in 5th.  The mix-up was due to the fact that Flannery’s performance on earlier problems gave her a higher combined score than Chanuncy had, but Chauncy did better on the last problem they climbed on (W2) and since in the elimination format each problem is a blank slate, Chauncy’s performance progressed her to problem 3 and therefore she beat Flan, who suffered on the slab of problem 2.  Make sense?  I hope?  Results for all the events (citizen’s, semis, and finals) are here: Results | The Battle in The Bubble | Boulder, CO

Flan racking up the points on W1. Too bad they don't carry over...

Video #1 is out–a highlight reel from Sender Films.  Click here, and if it starts on the wrong video, scroll down on the right side–it’s the bottom one: Battle in the Bubble Highlight Reel on Spot TV

It was cold, but the crowd was pretty huge!

For some pictures by a guy who actually knows what he’s doing, check out these: Battle in the Bubble Finals – Bouldering Comp | Fullerton Images

There are also many pics showing up on Facebook and Keith Ladzinski took a bunch that will be showing up soon.  Stay tuned!