March, Matilda competed in the BMC Open Youth lead climbing event in Liverpool. Sadly, she made an early mistake which made things more difficult but it didn’t stop her qualifying for the final in 8th place. After a fantastic climb in the final, Matilda came joint first. However, the lower position in the preliminary rounds dropped her to 5th overall on count back.
On Sunday Matilda moved on to a brand new bouldering centre in Manchester called the Depot. This time Matilda reached the final in second place, a position she maintained onto the podium.
Despite missing the final Blockfest event in London (due to being in Liverpool), Matilda was crowned the overall champion for 11-12 year olds for this five event bouldering series (as her lead over the first four events could not be caught). She has also won both regional (London and the South East) BMC Youth Climbing Series events held so far this year and, although there is still one more event next weekend, she has already qualified for the national finals in Edinburgh in April. In both the BMC events, Matilda is in the younger year of the two year category but, as the picture demonstrates, size doesn’t always matter!
