Thompson-Smith and MacDougall crowned 2024 British Lead Champions

• Wednesday 11th September 2024

Molly Thompson-Smith and Jack MacDougall were crowned 2024 British Lead Champions at the Edinburgh British Lead and Para Climbing Championship last weekend.

Zoe Peetermans and Sam Butterworth, the recently crowned 2024 British Bouldering Champions, along with a relatively short list of competitors, lined up at the Ratho last weekend to face stiff opposition in the form of former British Lead Champions Molly Thompson-Smith and Jack MacDougall to contest the British Lead Championships. As is often the issue, scheduling for senior competitors was difficult and kept numerous other strong contenders – like last year’s Women’s Champion Erin McNeice – away from the starting line up.

With multiple previous Championships win to her name, Olympian Molly Thompson-Smith was arguable the favourite to win the women’s title and having topped both the qualification routes and the semi-final she certainly looked on-form and fully recovered from her broken toe which hampered her Olympic preparations. Previous Lead Champion Zoe Peetermans however looked equally impressive matching Molly’s results top-for-top. The lead in the men’s category was equally tight between Sam Butterworth and Jack MacDougall.

The setters served-up a very interesting alternative format for the senior’s final. Both male and female finalists would climb on what was predominantly the same route albeit they would branch off before the headwall onto bespoke male and female finishes. Further interest was also added by the setters in the middle section of the route where competitors – of either gender – could choose between two alternative middle sections of the route – either a more powerful left-hand variant or a fingery right-hand alternative. Both variants had been set and thoroughly tested and judged to be of equal difficulty. During the observation period the competitors studied the route and looked to determine which of the two alternative middle sections they would climb.

Once climbing was underway on the senior’s route the left-hand more powerful method proved the more popular although there was no clear gender bias amongst the finalists and several men and women opting for the fingery variant. Interestingly, both options involved a dynamic move to rejoin the shared section prior to the headwall. Both Thea Cameron and Fae MacDougall fell on this section but Fae went ahead because of her better countback positioning. Climbing second to last, Zoe Peetermans climbed high on the route but fell whilst getting to get fully established on the women’s finish. Molly T-S was the last women to climb and did so in her usual purposeful and powerful style that we’re familiar with. Molly opted for the fingery variant on the middle section but rather than risk a dyno move she did a high-heel rock-over to rejoin the shared section. Continuing, Molly executed the tricky section out onto the women’s finish and then proceeded to “hike” the obviously hard and fingery remaining moves to top-out and maintain her fall-free weekend of comp climbing to win the 2024 title ahead of Zoe Peetermans.

Sean Henchion was the first of the male finalist to reach the initial moves on the men’s finish but he fell before getting established proper. Sam Butterworth made it several moves along this section before falling whilst attempting to find a clipping position for the final quickdraw. Jack MacDougall however made it another 4+ moves along the men’s finish before the hard boulder moves finally dispatched him just short of the top.