The first ever Ford Skymasters Event took place in Birmingham at The Outdoors Show, 14 th -16 th March 2008 at the NEC.
With a brand new concept in climbing devised by X1 Sports and The Outdoors Show and Entreprise providing the wall coupled with the fact that climbing legend Steve McClure and Percy Bishton worked their magic on the route setting everything looked set for a momentous weekend.
On Friday 14 th March the open competition ran with the top two climbers qualifying for the men's and women's invitational event on the Saturday.
On Saturday a field of 13 women and 22 men set about tackling the route. With a 10 minute time limit it was always going to be a tricky task finishing with only Leah Crane and Dave Barrens getting there. This put them in pole position for the Sunday finals.
With the field now cut to 8 men and 8 women finalists the competition got more serious. Following the demise of event favourites Aid Baxter and Gaz Parry the men's event looked to be anyone's especially as the route setters were looking to really test all the competitors.
The time limit was increased to 15 minutes each but needless to say the grade got that much harder, plus there was isolation to contend with too.
The finalists were:
Female Finalists
Male Finalists
Leah Crane
Rob Haigh
Michaela Tracey
Rob Sutton
Beth Monks
Rob Lamey
Katy Whittaker
Mark Croxall
Audrey Seguy
Tony Musselbrook
Kitty Wallace
Alan Cassidy
Jemma Powell
Drew Haigh
Annika Frodi
Lundgren Dave Barrans
After some incredible moves, massive crowds and amazing entertainment the final positions were:
Position
Women
Men
1
Michaela Tracey
Dave Barrans
2
Leah CranDave Barranse
Drew Haigh
3
Beth Monks
Tony Musselbrook
A massive congratulations has to go out to all the competitors across the 3 days and especially to Dave and Michaela who picked up the winners cheques.
