Brian
It's hard to imagine the pilot of a non Airbus holding full back stick and manually trimming full nose up no matter what the circumstance.
I totally agree, Sir. However, having flown Boeing 737s, as well as Airbus 320 and 330, I would add that it is equally hard to imagine the pilot of an Airbus holding full back stick.
It seems to me that the initial error was the PF's failure to perform the Unreliable AirSpeed (UAS) drill, which is a memory item. He then pitched up to an unrealistic attitude. As the aircraft would have been in trim prior to his sidestick input, the force required to hold the sidestick fully aft would, initially, have been large. That effort would diminish as the autotrim took effect, but it would take a significant time.