Best of luck to Eleanor and Rachel this Thursday and Friday and all our friends from Ratho and further afield who are also representing the GB team.  Best of luck too to all our Quickdraw members and parents who are turning out to volunteer at the event.  Events like this can't go ahead without volunteers so your contribution is appreciated.  We hope to have a Quickdraw fundraising Tattoo and Face painting stall but still require helpers.  Don't be shy.

If you didn't watch the live stream The Great Climb with Dave Mcleod and Tim Emmett is available from BBCi player until 4th Sept.  Totally worth watching for adults and kids alike.  Camera work is brillilant you can almost feel the rock beneath your fingers.

With less than 2 weeks until the championships entries are currently standing at 413 climbers from 32 countries.  Quickdraw are still hopeful of getting permission to run a face-painting and temporary tattoo stall at the event so if you can help on any of the days please let us know.

The team that will represent GB at the World Youth Championships in September was announced on Sunday and will include Eleanor Hopkins and Rachel Carr in the Youth B girls category.  Ross Kirkland, who is currently suffering tendonitis will be assessed at the end of August. 

Our mentors Natalie Berry and Jonny Stocking will join them, together with fellow Scots, Paul Williamson, Jonny Field, Robert Mackenzie, Dylan Mackenzie and Steven Addison.  This means the Scots could account for nearly 50% of the GB team.

(photo by Anthea MacKenzie)

The BMC Open Youth Championship took place on Saturday 24th July at EICA.  There were around 100 competitors including the GB and French national teams.  Competitors were split into their International categories and had 2 qualifying climbs. The climbers were scored using the international scoring system that takes the place a climber finishes in relation to the other competitors over the hold points they score, with the top 8 going through to a final climb.

Quickdraw had 10 climbers taking part on the day

Scott presents a golden Quickdraw chalk bag as a momento to Ally as we say farewell and wish Fraser, Ewan, Ally, Jim and Wendy all the best for their future in Arizona.

Location: - an open sided circus tent in Millhouses Park in Sheffield.  The Junior event took place on Saturday 26^th June when 52 boys and 30 girls aged 12 to 16 turned out to do their best on 10 different qualifying bouldering problems graded V2 to V6 for the girls and V3 to V8 for the boys.

There were 4 Scots down for the day.  Rachel Carr (14) and Andrew Barr (16) from Quickdraw with Fraser McIlwraith (14) and Alasdair Johnstone (16).

See Martin's photos in the Gallery of the Quickdraw weekend at Malham being coached by Steve McLure
 

A competition for schools to design a banner for display at this year's World Youth Championship at EICA.
Local schools are being asked to prepare a banner for this year's biggest international youth climbing competition being hosted by EICA from the 9th - 12th of September.

That was some weekend.  187 climbers and families and still room to move around.  Couldn't have done that at many other climbing walls.

Biggest congratulations for the day must go to Andrew Barr, the only Scotland South member to make it onto the podium. Big achievement when you consider that he didn't even qualify for the finals last year. So if you didn't do as well as you would have liked this year don't get disheartened, just get training.