The Entre-Prises UIAA World Championships.

What do you mean these are all the holds, how are we supposed to build over fourteen routes with just these? As usual, the route setter's job never runs according to plan especially for events such as this the World Championships. The lads from Entre-Prises had been working round the clock assembling the modular fibreglass wall, which was virtually finished when the team met up on the Monday night. Neil Bentley headed the route setting team, which included Ian Vickers, Andy Long and Percy Bishton.

Route setting on the Tuesday morning was slowed down by a lack of holds and missing cherry pickers. Ian Dunn saved the day by supplying addition Entre-Prises holds from their stand so that route setting could continue. So it's not true Squawks isn't as tight as a ants *%&"$. When the cherry pickers finally arrived on Tuesday afternoon the route setters could really speed up their work.

I bet you're sat there thinking how hard can it be all you have to do is bolt holds on a wall. Let me set the records straight it's ^%$£#+ hard work the team worked over twelve hours every day before the competition and until 1 and 2 in the morning on the competition days. Despite these minor setbacks and Ian nearly taking out the lower Freeform leg on the Thursday morning by Friday most routes had been virtually built ready for the competition to begin.

Was the World Championship a one horse race? On paper Yuji Hirayama from Japan looked to have the competition in the bag. His general climbing versatility and immense strength had enabled Yuji to onsight the first F8C and his general popularity with the crowd made him the odds on favourite. But competitions are funny things and anything could happen in the heat of battle.

Over 120 competitors from around the World had congregated on the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham for the 1999 Entre-Prises World Championships. In addition to the normal 'difficulty' competition, speed climbing would be part of the whole World Championship experience along with lectures and trade stands. The next three days would see the Worlds top climbers competing for the chance to be in the final and become the World Champion.

Despite the severity of the qualifying routes all the usual big names managed to advance through to the next round. Although some competitors did dispute the grades of the routes, complaining that the left route was possibly too hard, which might explain the number of climbers who all reached the same point. Although from its name you would assume that 'Speed climbing' would be dynamic and exciting but oh no the heats involved the competitors climbing the same routes over and over again, interesting the first few times but not after an hour.

Saturday started with the men climbing first on their semi-final route which ascended the right overhanging leg and crossed onto the Freeform section. The biggest shock was that neither Francois Petit nor Francois Legrand managed to make it through to the final. Yuji Hirayama fought valiantly on the route but could not manage to top out despite the crowd's encouragement.