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 Tony Musslebrook
Article.
Here
Tony Musslebrook
talks to us about his involvement within the SIBL and how it
helped get him to were he is today.
My story begins
when I was 6 years old. I had just seen the introduction to Ace
Ventura 2 and decided I wanted to be a rock climber.
Unfortunately living in the flat capital of Britain I had to
make do with drainpipes, lampposts and trees. It all changed
when I moved up to secondary school, finally there was something
there that was made for climbing, that was its sole purpose in
life; needless to say I went mental! Climbing was definitely the
most fun thing I had ever done and I took every opportunity to
go climbing I had, which inevitably led me to the SIBL. It was
my first competition, I had only been climbing a couple of
months so I was amazed when I ended up winning it. Haha,
whatever! No, I did rubbish. It was awesome though, I ended up
doing the SIBL every year for the next 5 or 6 years. I slowly
got better over the years and got into a head-2-head once but I
had no idea what I was doing so it all went horribly wrong. A
few years later, and about 15 chalk bags in spot prizes better
off, I managed to actually win the juniors, but I still have yet
to win even a round in the seniors. Success here prompted me to
start competing at a national level.
As well as doing
the SIBL I began climbing outside a lot, mainly at Harrison’s
and Bowles’, which has helped me no end in my climbing related
life. Climbing outside is so important because the there are no
‘holds’ as such, you have to find them in slots, in breaks, on
arętes and round bulges. Suddenly you find yourself chalking up
flat sections of rock because the angle of it is one degree
different to the rest of the rock, and that makes it holdable
and it is this ability, amongst others, which you can’t learn
indoors but is so useful there, that has made my competition
climbing what it is.
I got invited onto
the British climbing team in 2005 and it has taken me all over
Europe and even to Beijing; in 2007 I came 9th in the
Junior category for the European Championships in Poland, but
had it not been for the SIBL, all them years ago, I probably
wouldn’t have ever started competing which is why I felt
honoured to be asked to set for a SIBL round in October; for me
it represents one of the many circles in life. I’m back to where
I started now but only I’m not the little kid running around
bouncing off the walls this time, although people do often tend
to find me bouncing off of something.
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