Scotland sneak the win at the Senior Home Internationals

The beginning of October saw the Scottish Senior Home International (SHI) team travel to Northern Ireland to take on England, Wales and Ireland – and win! – after three tiebreaks!

The individual event was hosted by Laggan Valley Orienteers and took place in the Meelmore Mountains. It combined the SHI & Northern Ireland Long Distance Championships for the individuals with a relay organised the next day. Meelmore is open mountain with contour and rock detail. It provided an area with a high concentration of boulders which is popular with hikers.

All team stayed together in a hostel in Newcastle with the traditional meal and social on Saturday night. Apparently some of the best food of any SHI was eaten that night!?

The event was a close run thing all weekend. After the individuals on the Saturday, it was a draw between Scotland and England with a tie breaker points determined by the first non counting runners. After investigation England lead overnight with the lowest number of tiebreaker points.

Sunday saw the team travel to Slievenagore for the relays which is another great technical moorland area on the south side of the Mournes. With the men setting off first England took with relay lead ahead of Scotland after the men’s relay. The Scottish women however won the women’s relay leading to yet another tie break! To determine who won the relays , the tie break is to use the 3rd team results. Scotland’s 3rd Women’s relay team was in fact 3rd whereas England’s 3rd Women’s team came in 6th with the 3rd men’s relay team not completing. So Scotland won the relays.

The Overall competition was then decided by yet another tie-break! This tie break looked at the number of 1st places across the 2 relays and 4 individuals. Scotland won this by 4 wins to 2. And so Scotland claimed the SHIs for 2026! Well done team and thank you to Laggan Valley Orienteers and all their volunteers who made this happen.