On Saturday March 24, 2007 the Climbing Works bouldering gym in Sheffield, England will host the International Masters Bouldering Competition.

(Masters in this case means a minimum climbing standard of v9 onsight for the men, v7 onsight for women)

The route setting team will include:

• Percy Bishton, Int’l. Chief Route Setter and owner of Climbing Works
• Ian Vickers, Current Int’l Route Setter and former European and X-Games champion
• Andy Long, Co-designer of Climbing Works
• Jason Pickles

Percy guarantees, “Some of the finest, spectacular and most far-out problems the world has ever seen!”

And you think you’re local comp is big

This event is unique in that it is not a World Cup or other sanctioned event. It is essentially a local comp that happens to have an $8800 (€ 4500 pounds) purse, given out to the top six men and women. If you’re the local big gun, however, you’ll be competing against Ty Landman and Audrey Seaguy, and the current World Cup Champ, Jerome Meyer. Steve McClure and Dani Andrada will also be in attendance.

One reason for such a high-profile, local event is the timing. The IFSC European Boulder Championships are being held in Birmingham, England (about a 2 hours drive from Sheffield) just the week before. Therefore the “turnout of top climbers from overseas is expected to be very high”.

But of course this event is also helped out by the high-level certified route setters that will also be coming down after the European comp; the website states that the setting team will be the same as the championships, minus Jackie Godoffe.

Check out the format and other details at the Climbing Works website.

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