On 7th/ 8th September saw an opportunity for the Scottish athletes to compete on home turf, for the Senior Home Internationals, as it was Scotland’s turn to host the event. Forth Valley Orienteers were hosting the event with the individual races taking part at Edinchip and the relays at Callandar Crags.
David Robertson of Edinburgh Southern Orienteering Club (ESOC) is never one to blow his own trumpet! So much so that after the award of the President’s medal to him at the AGM he was asked to send in a photo so we could do a post and we haven’t seen it yet!
Last weekend saw a Scottish Junior team make their way to the South West for the Junior Inter Regional Championships. This event takes place every year and sees juniors from all 12 regions of the UK come together to compete for their region but most importantly to socialise with fellow orienteers from their regions and beyond. With over 200 juniors attending and everyone staying in the same location orienteering is on the agenda but catching up on their social life is just as high!
Saturday saw the individual event take place at Mallards Pike in the Forest of Dean. The terrain was runnable with a network of ditches and old mine workings to test their navigation. As is standard the juniors set up camp, got down to face painting to ensure everyone was in the team spirit and provided vocal support to all coming through the spectator control.
By Peter Molloy (Forth Valley Orienteers)
An impressive total of 10 Scottish or Scotland-based athletes have just returned from competing for GB in Kuopio, Finland, where the final round of this year’s Orienteering World Cup was held. This set of races was doubly significant for the team as Kuopio is the host of the 2025 World Orienteering Championships, thus allowing runners to get a feel for the terrain and planning challenges they will be up against in July of next year.
Having spent a few days familiarising themselves with the characteristics of forest in this region of Finland, which can offer both varying runnability and visibility whilst still always (nearly always) leaving you with a smile on your face, the first race was the long distance. The 20 degrees drop in temperature from the European Championships was greatly appreciated, and GB capitalised on this with some strong performances.
Ralph Street (17th) and Megan Carter-Davies (22nd) produced the strongest results of the day, however they were followed closely by Scots Josh Dudley (MarOC) in 37th and Grace Molloy (FVO) in 35th. A special mention should also go to Matthew Gooch and Eilidh Campbell (both EUOC and MarOC) for making their senior international debuts in this race and achieving 68th and 94th respectively. There isn’t much more of a brutal start than racing the Scandinavians in Scandinavia, so they should look forward to building on these results in future.
Following a rainy rest day the athletes were back out into the forest on Saturday for the middle distance; a discipline which is perhaps the hardest to achieve a strong result since the margin for error is so vanishingly small. Josh Dudley was the top performer for the Scottish men, finishing in 48th despite only being 5:50 down on the winner. Saturday was also the chance for Euan Tryner (EUOC) to make his senior international debut and despite catching a cold in the lead up to the race he turned in a solid performance to come 70th. Grace Molloy, with no help whatsoever from the Norwegian runner starting two minutes behind her, improved on Thursday’s result to sneak into the top 30, whilst Jo Sheperd (INVOC) ran well to finish 52nd. Rachel Brown (EUOC) finished in 67th whilst Niamh Hunter (also EUOC) finished in 85th.
Sunday’s relay promised and duly delivered fast and exciting head-to-head racing. The men were off first and all produced solid performances: GBR1, anchored by Josh Dudley, finished as 8th nation, with GBR3 featuring Peter Molloy (FVO) and Matthew Gooch finishing only 3 minutes behind them. In the women’s race GBR1, featuring Jo Shepherd and Grace Molloy, likewise finished as 8th nation, with Fiona Bunn recovering from previous ankle soreness to run a strong anchor leg for GBR2.
An Extraordinary General Meeting of Scottish Orienteering is being held in person at North Inch Community Campus, Gowan Terrace, Perth PH1 5BF, on Saturday 14th September 2024 at 10am.
The EGM Booklet is linked below containing details of the proposals. In terms of the EGM document you will note that certain amendments to the Articles of Association are proposed and you will also find linked below a copy of the Articles of Association with the proposed changes shown marked.
Read More…The European Orienteering Championships took place in the Vértes Hills in Hungary, in very hot conditions.
There were a number of Scots and Scottish based athletes in the team, with Grace Molloy (Forth Valley Orienteers) earning the best results. She was 28th in the middle distance, and 22nd in the long distance, and in a team also containing Jo Shepherd (Inverness Orienteering Club), came 9th in the relay.
Fiona Bunn (Edinburgh University Orienteering Club) backed up a good WUOC with solid 54th and 37th in the individual races, but unfortunately was injured for the relay. Peter Molloy (Forth Valley Orienteers) was 45th in the long, and part of the men’s relay team which finished 14th. Luke Fisher (Interlopers) made his team GB debut, coming 58th in the long distance, and Jo Shepherd was also 58th.
Grace had this to say – “I was excited to be back in the forest after focusing on sprint orienteering ahead of WOC. The races presented different challenges with technical steep slopes in the middle, physically tough courses with important route choices in the long, and a fast relay with no chance to recover from mistakes. I was pleased to deliver my most consistent set of World Cup races including my best senior long result.”
The World University Orienteering Championships took place in Bankso in Bulgaria this year.
The GB team was packed with Scots and Scottish based athletes, and the highlight was clearly the victory in the Mixed Sprint Relay for Rachel Brown (Edinburgh University Orienteering Club), Peter Molloy (Forth Valley Orienteers), Eddie Narbett (Interlopers), and Fiona Bunn (Edinburgh University Orienteering Club).
Fiona backed this up with 6th place in both sprint and relay, and anchored the women’s relay team with a fastest leg time to bring the team into 8th.
The men’s relay team of David Bunn (Edinburgh University Orienteering Club), Euan Tryner (Edinburgh University Orienteering Club), and Peter Molloy were 7th, with Euan running second quickest on leg 2.
Other notable results in the sprint race were Eddie Narbett13th, Rachel Brown 15th, Peter Molloy 17th and Freddie Carcas (Interlopers) 18th.
Fiona had this to say “World Unis was a great experience for me this year. It was a nice bridge between sprint and forest championships, had a great ratio of relays to individual races (2:2!) and some really interesting/unique forest terrain! I prepared by running a few days of the Bulgaria cup, and training in a few nearby areas. I was happy to have consistent individual performances, especially in the technical Middle distance, but the highlight was certainly winning a surprise gold in the Mixed Sprint relay. The team of Rachel, Peter and Eddie had storming runs to send me out in a medal position, about 30s down on the lead. I was so focused on the battle for silver/bronze that I did not realise that the Swedish last leg had gone walkabouts and we had in fact won until well after the finish! Thanks to Tom and Jon for their coaching during the week and the University of Edinburgh for their financial support and performance program coaching which supported many of the athletes on the team!”
Peter had this to say “I was absolutely delighted that our team won the WUOC sprint relay. In the build-up I was hopeful that we could challenge for a medal behind Switzerland and Sweden, since I knew that we had a strong team. However on the day we outperformed our expectations and were in the right place and the right time to capitalise on the mistakes of other teams. There’s no better feeling than winning a gold medal, and to do it with the team makes it all the more satisfying and memorable. I’m glad we could pick up where the victorious GB sprint relay team in 2016 WUOC left off!”
This weekend the Scottish Sprint Championships were hosted by Tayside Orienteers in MacRosty Park in Crieff. In a fun variation on the normal sprint style saw best use of the parkland and surrounding woods or streets with competitors taking part in two ultrasprints which were then combined to calculate the winning times.
It was perhaps not quite what James MacRosty thought the park would be used for when he donated part of it to the people of Crieff in 1908 but the format seemed to make people smile and even the weather approved!
Read More…As notified at the Annual General Meeting held on 24th June this year, we will be holding an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) on 14th September 2024 at North Inch Community Campus, Perth at 10am.
The EGM Booklet will be published in the next few days with details of the resolutions and nominations for new Directors being brought forward.
Read More…Collectively everyone involved created something really special in terms of WOC 2024 and WOC Tour. Many competitors in WOC Tour and the teams from all over the world taking part in WOC 2024 have given us really positive feedback, “Best Ever” being a common theme. Even those who didn’t visit but watched from afar commented on how brilliant the TV coverage was.
The work put in by everyone was outstanding and we can be really proud of what we achieved together. This was not just the work that took place during the two events but the immense amount of hard work for years beforehand. And it could not have gone ahead without funding from EventScotland, The City of Edinburgh Council, British Orienteering Federation and of course SOA and Scottish 6 Days on behalf of Scottish Orienteering Members. All that hard work turned a creative vision into a beautiful reality.
Thanks to you all on behalf of the Boards of the Scottish Orienteering Association and the Scottish Orienteering 6 Day Event Company
