Athletes, Parents, Coaches,

The ACA board has made the difficult decision to remove the C & D categories from the upcoming Provincial Lead competition in Edmonton on May 4th & 5th 2024.  The competition will proceed at the UofA Wilson Climbing Centre as scheduled for the Jr, A, and B categories.  We understand that this decision will cause significant disruption for several of our members.  The decision was not made lightly.  The board will be looking into planning a standalone provincial competition for the C & D categories sometime after nationals.

The challenge

The board was recently informed that the capacity limit for the Wilson Climbing Centre at the UofA would be reduced to a total of 70 people in the building at any given time.  This is a 50% reduction from the 140 person limit that was in place last season.  We had already been planning measures to accommodate for the restrictions, including: no spectators, remote viewing, and using athlete staging areas.

Our partners at the University of Alberta and the Wilson Climbing Centre have proposed the use of areas throughout the Van Vliet athletic complex to help offload capacity from the Wilson Climbing Centre.  After careful review, the ACA board decided that this proposal would significantly impede and reduce athletes’ proper preparation (physically and mentally) for the qualifier round.

The solution

In order to accommodate the number of athletes, officials, judges, belayers, coaches, coordinators, scorekeepers, setters, and UofA staff, we can only have 2 qualifier routes running at a time.  We're still finalizing the specific schedule, but we will run 1 category at a time (Jr Female, Junior Male, A Female, A Male, B Female, B Male).

There will be no semifinal round.  The top 8 athletes from qualifiers will compete in a finals round (1 route, isolation).

Athletes will be able to warm up and prepare in the Wilson Climbing Centre before their start times.  They will be asked to leave when their 2nd route is completed, in order to allow the next category to begin preparations.

There will be no spectators allowed in the Wilson Climbing Centre.  We have a remote viewing solution in place; spectators can view our camera feeds from another room in the Van Vliet complex.

Decision considerations

The board considered moving the competition to another venue.  The logistics for another gym to host on short notice were found to be untenable on such short notice.  The board also considered travel commitments,  setter travel plans, and sunk costs from the University of Alberta.

The board considered scenarios that would include C & D athletes.  These scenarios would have compromised the competition format for all athletes.  The board agreed to uphold the integrity of the competition format as a priority.

Jr, A, and B athletes have a chance to qualify for nationals through the provincial lead competition.  The board agreed that preparing Jr, A and B athletes for nationals later in May was a priority.

The board will endeavour to schedule a provincial top-rope competition for the C & D athletes for the 2023/2024 season.  The board acknowledges the importance for our C & D athletes to complete their season properly.  

FAQs

1. What about the registrations for C & D athletes?

• We plan to keep the registrations in place for the replacement provincial competition.  The ACA incurs processing fees for both purchases and refunds; it is very expensive to refund all transactions and then process those same purchases later.

• However, all requests for refund will be processed unconditionally.  Contact jeremyfidelack@albertaclimbing.org

2. Where and when would the replacement provincial competition for C & D athletes occur?

• There are no details for this.  The competition would be sometime after nationals.

3. Where are the detailed schedule, volunteer sign-up, remote viewing details, etc for the May 4th & 5th competition?

• We'll be spending a lot of time finalizing the details and sharing on our website this week.

4. What is the ACA doing to prevent this scenario from happening again?

• The ACA board has a competition committee in place this year.  There are a number of proposals for the 2024/2025 season that are being prepared to address this type of scenario.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.  The ACA board is entirely volunteer run, and spends countless hours working to provide the best competition experience possible for our athletes.  Feel free to reach out to us with questions or comments.

Regards,