2023 La Sportiva National Lead & Para Climbing Championships

The Geckos put on a great show at the 2023 National Champs, both as athletes and as the host club!

Thanks to all the many volunteers who came together to make it happen, including all on the committee, the belayers, the route-setters, the bake sale stall volunteers, the judges, the photographers, the supporters, all the climbers & other cat-herders! We couldn’t have done it without you all.

We’d particularly like to thank the YMCA Adventure Centre and their staff for supporting our hosting of this competition – it is a big upheaval for them, and their staff went above and beyond in their support of the comp.

We’d also like to thank our sponsors for this weekend, Christchurch City Council & the Aotea Gaming Trust.

It would have been a big ask this weekend to try and gain the large number of points required to wrest the CNZ Clubs Trophy back from BOPSCA this year (due to their overwhelming advantage in the speed discipline), but we were stoked to hear at the final prize-giving that the Geckos were top club this year in both lead-climbing & bouldering!

Athlete	Category	Placing
Anna Evans	Youth D Female	Silver
Tobin Priestley	Youth D Male	Silver
Charlotte Chinn	Youth C Female	Bronze
Manaia Johnston	Youth C Female	4th
Robert Rider	Youth B Male	Silver*
Cooper Gibson	Youth B Male	8th
Alex Evans	Youth B Male	10th
Harvey Sanderson	Youth B Male	11th
Katie Chinn	Youth B Female	4th
Xanthe Saunders	Youth B Female	6th
Amber Grossmith	Youth B Female	7th
Hanna North	Youth B Female	8th
Zoe Ball	Youth B Female	12th
Spencer Menzies	Youth A Male Open Male	4th 6th
Grayson Meaclem	Youth A Male Open Male	7th 22nd
Ollie Chinn	Youth A Male Open Male	10th 21st
Jack Cameron	Youth A Male	20th
Sophia Cook	Youth A Female Open Female	Silver 6th
Laura Townshend	Youth A Female Open Female	4th 5th
Ngaire North	Junior Female	Bronze
Nicky Dachs	Open Female	7th
Jake Townshend	Open Male	Bronze
Sefton Priestley	Open Male	8th
Scott Ferguson	Open Male	12th
Joseph Bates	Open Male	13th

A selection of photos of various Geckos in action are below.
Photographers are Murray Goldsmith, Nicola Chinn & Conor Boyd.
Conor’s full album of photos from the weekend are available here.

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