Just 5 months on from the British Bouldering Championships’ 2024 edition (the first to be held indoors), the national selection event returned and this time, our BIG Depot Manchester site played host.
The 2025 British Bouldering Championships was brought forward, having traditionally been held during the Summer, after athlete feedback that as one of the main selection events for GB Climbing, it should take place before the International competition season begins.
As a result, the competitor field was stronger than it has been for some years, with the regular international competition climbers available to take part, including Olympic gold medalist Toby Roberts, and fellow Olympians Hamish McArthur and Erin McNeice; the latter being a Depot Climbing athlete too!
With more climbing than you can shake a stick at, BIG Depot Manchester was able to host the entire championships in a small section of its bouldering areas, with qualifying rounds for all age groups taking place on Saturday. The qualifying provided no major upsets, with all of the international big hitters making it through to Sunday morning semi-finals.
Defending champion Zoe Peetermans was on a mission to retain her crown, qualifying for semis in second place, hot on the heels of Erin McNeice, who was competing at the Paris Olympic games as Zoe took the national crown last August.
2023’s champion, Holly Toothill put in a strong performance, qualifying in 3rd place, not far behind Zoe and Erin.

The men’s qualifying saw Hamish Mcarthur bring his recent good form on rock to the plastic blocs of the British Bouldering Championships.
Having returned from Squamish, Canada with a ticklist of sends and flashes of some of the area’s hardest boulders up to V15, he wasted no time in qualifying joint first with Olympic gold medalist Toby Roberts, who himself has been out in Spain testing himself on Perfecto Mundo, Margalef.
Fellow Depot Climbing athletes Emma Edwards and Dayan Akhtar both qualified for semis with 4th and 6th places respectively.
At the culmination of the qualifying rounds, 150 climbers were whittled down to 40 (20 female, 20 male), who progressed to Sunday morning semi-final, bidding to be one of the 8 in each category who make the finals that evening.
Max ‘the Future’ Milne led the men’s semi-finals with an impressive 3 tops, two of which were flashes to move comfortably into Sunday evening’s finals, followed comfortably by Toby with the same number of tops in three more attempts.
2024’s defending champion Sam Butterworth made it into finals in 5th place with 2 tops and 2 zones, just ahead of Hamish, Nathan Whaley and Jamie Jenkins, who both produced matching scores to round off the 8 qualifying men’s finalists.
The women’s semifinals saw Depot Climbing athletes Erin McNeice and Emma Edwards putting their chalk bags in the finals ring, Erin producing 4 tops including 3 flashes, in her usual effortless style in her aim to win her first British Bouldering Championships to go alongside her recent sweep of the main domestic climbing competitions this year.
Erin’s performance did little to derail the remaining climbers, with Zoe Peetermans registering 4 tops, and Holly Toothill adding 3 tops and a zone to ensure that the finals were filled with one of the strongest lineups in British female competition climbing.

As semi-finals came to a close, 16 hopefuls remained from the 150 that started qualifying the previous day, and a crowd of 150 spectators gathered, with a further 17k viewers streaming online, to cheers on the 8 men and 8u women about to battle it out for the ultimate prize of national champion.
Maya Patel & Connie Bridgens were the other names that qualified for the women’s final, both making their BBC’s finals debuts and were the first ladies out onto W1, a balancy start and top, with a dynamic jump to a mantel.
A top proved elusive for both Maya and Connie, but both registered zones, before Emma Edwards topped the boulder on her 3rd attempt, with Zoe and Erin providing the only other tops of W1.
The setters may have got carried away with M1, as no competitor was able to top the boulder, with those who made progress just managing to score a zone. Notable was the fact that all athletes reaching the zone utilised a tenuous heel hook to aid the first moves.
Tops began to flow when the athletes arrived on M2, with flashes of the boulder from Jack MacDougall, Dayan Akhtar, Hamish, and Toby making the top after 5 attempts. A jump start to a capped crimp before a dynamic jump to another crimp almost put the competitors into an iron cross position, before they had to employ as much tension as they could fine to make a final move to the top.

In the women’s category, W2 didn’t provide any relief for those struggling, with a difficult coordination movement along volumes that proved too much for half of the field, before Fae MacDougall reached the top after 4 attempts, Emma on her second and Erin, who was the only athlete to look untroubled added another flash to her scorecard.
W3 was more amenable to the competitors, despite its technical difficulty, it saw four flashes from Erin, Emma, Fae and Lucy, with Zoe and Holly registering zone scores.
The M3 bloc provided the men with more opportunity for scoring, with 6 tops from the 8 competitors despite a difficult jump and catch from an undercut led to technical and balance-dependent moves to a top hold.
Almost every athlete tried different beta on the difficult press move at the top of the boulder, with Hamish being the first to top in 5 attempts, Sam, Jack, Dayan, Toby and Max all registering tops for their scorecards.
The final women’s boulder of the British Bouldering Championships saw 4 flashes and 7 tops, with Erin McNeice, Emma Edwards, Fae MacDougall and Lucy Garlick making the boulder look a lot easier than it appeared.
Connie Bridgens got the ball rolling, topping on her 5th attempt to rapturous cheering from the 150-strong crowd to round off an impressive BBC’s finals debut before Holly Toothill recovered to reach the top after a false start due to a timer malfunction.
Erin McNeice, seeded 1st, was the last competitor out on the bloc and kept her consistency going, seemingly floating to the top of the boulder to seal a dominant performance to be crowned British Bouldering Champion 2025, having flashed every bloc in the finals.

All was to play for on the men’s final boulder, with Dayan Akhtar and Jack MacDougall both vying for their maiden British champion title, while Hamish McArthur wasn’t far behind.
Certainly one of the tougher boulders of the men’s blocs, athletes were required to delicately walk along upside down volumes at high angles before making a long jump to a small jip screwed onto a dual tex volume; and it wasn’t over after that, an awkward double undercling on poor feet set up for a dynamic move to a press above the head!
Not usually known for his competitive slab climbing, Depot Climbing athlete Dayan Akhtar registered a flash, surprising no one more than himself and putting himself in a prominent position for the title.
Hamish McArthur eventually managed to top the boulder, before Jack MacDougall wrapped up the title 1 single zone, to win a maiden British Bouldering Championships title, just 2 months after winning the 2024 edition of the Depot Climbing Battle of Britain competition.

The final results of the senior British Bouldering Championships finals were:
Mens Category
- Jack Macdougal
- Hamish McArthur
- Dayan Akhtar
- Toby Roberts
- Maximillian Milne
- Sam Butterworth
- Jamie Jenkins
- Nathan Whaley
Women’s Category
- Erin McNeice
- Emma Edwards
- Fae MacDougall
- Lucy Garlick
- Zoe Peetermans
- Holly Toothill
- Connie Bridgens
- Maya Patel
Video & Imagery: Adam Cooledge
Words: James Lister
Categorised in: Uncategorised
This post was written by depotadmin