Our OCF Junior athletes may be competing in their last Youth Nationals – some may be on to exciting adventures and others may be aging out next year. As a tribute to them and all their hard work, we are profiling all of them. This year`s Ontario representatives at Nationals will be:
Beth Vince, Lia Wieckowski, Olivia Wyett, Ayla Jacquard, Elina Kreuzberg, Rosalee Mazza, Charle Prosser, Xiu Timmins, Alana Park, Alexandra Pierce, Jakob Elliott, Nathan Smith, Sam Tiukuvaara, Lucas Uchida, Rahul Sapra, Adam Frodis, Connor Gautron, Kanoa Haley, Eric Jamieson, Kye Wotton
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Steph Wilson
Steph is 17 yrs old and grew up in Cape Town, South Africa before moving to England. She was lucky enough to compete twice at the British National Champs for trampolining until she moved on and started climbing with her brother at a tiny, but awesome gym in Southampton. She started climbing 2 years ago and competing about 1 year ago since she moved to Canada. She would love to get outdoors and travel more though this requires a drivers licence…a procrastination project of hers. This is her second time at Nationals for lead and is excited to see how it goes.
(photo courtesy of Elena Zaralieva)
Alana Park
Alana is 18 years old and is planning to attend McMaster University next year. Alana started out in the Junior Rock Program at Boulderz where she was climbing with kids half her age (and a quarter of her size) before finally joining the youth team. She can barely believe that this is now her 5th year competing! This year is very special because after 4 years of being an American foreign national she is finally a Canadian citizen. Aside from training in the gym, Alana loves climbing outdoors with her uncle in England who teaches her lots about knots and anchors. She hopes that climbing will always remain a prominent and fulfilling part of her life.
“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”
-Eleanor Roosevelt
Kye Wotton
Kye works and climbs at Grand River Rocks. He began competing in 2011/12 when the gym opened in Kitchener. He is 18 years old and in his last year of secondary school.
Check out this little
profile on Rogers T.V. of Kye by Coach J.C. Reinosa.
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(photo courtesy of Michael Dalton-Smith)
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Adam Frodis
Adam is a member of the True North Climbing Team. He began climbing six years ago in their recreational program and began competing the season after. Adam is 18 years old this year. He enjoys a variety of other sports as well as climbing.
(photo courtesy of Michael Dalton-Smith)
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Eric Jamieson
Eric is from the Ottawa area. He has been climbing since he was 15 years old, and he’s 18 now. He started climbing a lot this past August and this is his first year competing in the Youth circuit. When he’s not climbing he says that he is “usually making hot trap beats which can be found here
https://m.soundcloud.com/yung-squak” .
(photo courtesy of Coyote Youth Team)
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Xiu Timmins
Xiu is 18 years old and has been climbing for 7 years and competing for 6. This year she is splitting her time between climbing and school where she is studying Fashion Management. Her goal is always to improve and climb outdoors more often. She hopes that after the winter semester and her internship, she will have lots of time to climb.
(photo provided by Xiu)
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Olivia Wyett
Olivia started climbing in a recreational program at True North almost six years ago and says she wouldn’t have joined the competitive team if it weren’t for her brothers, Jack and Ethan! Her favourite part of competing is getting to travel and meet so many amazing people. This past Fall, Olivia travelled and climbed around Europe and she is planning some more trips before this year is over; one of those being to Japan. Some of Olivia’s competitive climbing accomplishments include being a part of the Canadian Youth team and competing in Noumea, New Caledonia and winning her first Tour de Bloc comp, this year. In September, Olivia plans to begin her postsecondary studies at McGill University. Here’s my favourite pic of Oliva (look at that flexibility!).
(photo courtesy of Michael Dalton-Smith)
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Connor Gautron
Connor is 17 years old, started climbing three years ago and competing about a year and a half ago. His focus is to gain more experience in competitive climbing. He also enjoys climbing outside and is always looking for new opportunities to do so. He is currently working at Boiler Room climbing gym as a youth instructor and finishing high school. He plans to go to university next year and continue to climb and travel as much as possible.
(photo courtesy of Malek Taleb)
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Rosalee Mazza
Rosalee will be 18 on February 16th and is currently in her fifth year of competing. She started to climb recreationally, however she quickly developed a passion for this sport. Within the year she discovered climbing, she tried out for True North’s Youth Competitive Team and became a member. Rosalee is grateful to have discovered rock climbing because of all the opportunities it has given her and for being part of the amazing climbing community. She has grown in the sport during her years of training and competing and continues to strive to improve her personal best. She will be going to university next year and will continue to climb during her post secondary years.
(photo courtesy of Matt Chapman)
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Nathan Smith
Nathan is 18 years old, started climbing in 2010, and fell in love with it immediately. Only three weeks after his first climbing lesson, he chose to compete at a friendly format Summer Sweat Fest competition. Soon after, an injury forced him to stop climbing for nearly a year. When he was well enough to climb, he started competing again, and has now competed at two World Youth Climbing Championships in Lead, one in Bouldering, in four Lead World Cups and one Bouldering World Cup. He also enjoys climbing outside very much. Last summer, after a number of international climbing events, he spent the better part of 3 months travelling and climbing outdoors in Europe.
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(photo provided by Nathan)
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Elina has been climbing for close to 3 years, and has been competing for nearly half that time. She finds that climbing has opened many doors for her and has allowed her to explore and to climb in places like Ontario, Quebec, the US, and even Kyrgyzstan. In the future she hopes to combine her love of climbing and travelling, and to climb on every continent (excluding Antarctica). Next year she hopes to move to Vancouver to climb and to study Food Science at the University of British Columbia.
(photo provided by Elina)
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Charle Prosser
Charle is 18 years old and this is her seventh year climbing. She has been on the National youth team and competed in Singapore and Chile. She strives during training to continual improvement so she can achieve her personal best. This strong character trait is likely carried over from her years as a competitive swimmer. Her passion for climbing has led her to working at Rock Oasis, where she is part of the setting crew and coaches the youth team.
(photo courtesy of Team Grip)
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Kanoa Haley
Kanoa just turned 17 years old, in December. He is in his last year of high school. He plans on going to university next year. He has a few options and hasn’t made any firm decisions yet. He has been climbing since he was ten. He has been competing on and off since he was 12. Kanoa’s family used to travel a lot and so he would compete when he was at home in Ontario. He would like to travel to climb and he enjoys exploring new crags. He doesn’t have a specific goal for climbing, he just does it because he enjoys it.
(apparently, Kanoa also likes to surf!)
(photo courtesy of Grand River Rocks; 2nd photo supplied by Kanoa)
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Lucas will be 18 years old on April 25th this year. He has been climbing for 10-11 years and competing for the past 5 years. He has competed in 3 IFSC Bouldering World Cups and has been on the Canadian Youth National team for the last 3 years, attending Youth World Championships, each of these years. He placed first Nationally in youth A last year in both Boulder and Lead. He also placed first at Youth Pan Ams in Mexico City in the Bouldering discipline for the Youth A category. Besides climbing, he goes to high school, and works at a climbing gym as an instructor. As cross training he does martial arts, more specifically Aikido. Currently, he says that his main focus is understanding what makes “high quality climbing”, and developing his mental strength.
(Photo courtesy of Michael Dalton-Smith)
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Lia Wieckowski
Lia is an 18 year old climber from Oakville, who has been competing for 5 years. She has dedicated this year to competition climbing and has been training more often at a higher intensity. So far this year she has achieved her best results at OCF, CEC and TDB competitions. She hopes to continue to improve her results and earn a place on the youth national team for Bouldering and Lead.
(Photo courtesy of Dennis Barnes)
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Beth Vince
Beth will be 18 years old on April 1st, this year. She is finishing her last year of secondary school with a plan to enjoy climbing next year and think about her postsecondary options. Beth has been climbing since she was 6 years old. She has been a member of the Canadian Youth team for the last 3 years and has competed at 2 IFSC Boulder World Cups in the Open category. Beth’s goal is to compete for the Canadian team in the Olympics.
(photo courtesy of Aidas Odonelis)
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Ayla Jacquard
Ayla grew up on Baffin Island in the eastern Arctic, living first in Pond Inlet then in Iqaluit. She started climbing 5 years ago when she moved to Ottawa and in her first year competing competitively (2015), she placed 2nd provincially in her category. Ayla graduates from grade 12 in June and plans to climb, work and travel next year before heading to University.
(photo courtesy of Matt Champman)
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Samuel Tiukuvaara
Sam has competed at Boulder World Cups and the World Youth Climbing Championships last summer in Italy. He graduated from secondary school last year and now finds himself pretty busy with school, work and his apartment (this is why he missed the local and Provincials this year). His plan is to become a paramedic. He tries to climb as much as he can and wishes he was back in high school without responsibilities. In the couple comps that he was able to compete in this season, he was successful.
(photo courtesy of Shane Murdoch)
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Alexandra Pierce
Alex turned 17 this December, and is finishing high school and planning to study Physiology next year at university. Alex has only been climbing for 2 years, but is known for having a passion for training and climbing. Her favourite competitions are Tour de Blocs, but she likes climbing outside even more and can’t wait for the snow to be gone.
(photo provided by Alex)
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Rahul Sapra
Rahul is 17 years old, has been climbing for 4.5 years and competes for Team Climber’s Rock. When he’s not climbing, you can find him watching climbing videos, staring at holds online or just thinking about climbing in general. An eager lead climber and reluctant Boulderer, Rahul says that he makes up for his lack of muscle with a lot of drop-knees and ridiculous lankiness. In his last two years of youth competitive climbing, he hopes to keep improving his results at provincial and national championships, and figure out how to make the Bouldering season go by quicker.
(photo courtesy of Michael Dalton-Smith)
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Jakob Elliott
Jakob Elliott is 17 years old, going on to his 4th year climbing and 3rd year competing. He will graduate secondary school this year and plans to take a year off before postsecondary, to work, travel and climb. He climbs with the Grand River Rocks Youth team and hopes to coach during his year off. He much prefers Bouldering competitions and has devoted most of his time to training in order to perform better and achieve his goals. His goals include making a Tour de Bloc Finals, competing in Finals at Bouldering Youth Nationals and sending his first V11 outdoors. (editor’s note: we’ll all be cheering you on this weekend, Jakob!)
(photo courtesy of Michael Dalton-Smith)
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