The climax of the orienteering season, the Scottish Championships, saw over 300 runners battle for honours in deepest Perthshire at the weekend.
The Individual Championships were held at Auchingarrich near Comrie in a mixed forest and moorland area, with the forest being affected in places by the heavy rain and gales earlier in the week.
Barry Veitch had an excellent run to win M40S by a considerable margin. Kirstin Maxwell and Sarah Tullie finished 2nd and 4th respectively on W20, and there were 3rd places for John Tullie, Robert Cranston and Lindsey Knox. Karen was very unlucky to turn an ankle and had to retire.
The Relay Championships moved slightly east to the impressive grounds of Drummond Castle with its bluebell woods and volcanic dykes. Due to injury only two Roxburgh Reivers teams competed but they also provided two members of the Edinburgh University Ladies team. In addition to the Mens and Womens Open Classes, club teams battled it out over three legs to win the coveted Silver Quaich for first handicap team over the line, or for a class victory.
The Planner was quite adamant that the area had got much slower over the past few weeks than expected, but the courses were all on the long side and it was over 45 minutes before the first adult runner appeared – in the shape of John Tullie on lead-off leg for the RR Handicap 15+ team. John returned first from a pack of 80 runners, well ahead of the next runner. Lindsey had the misfortune to lose a contact lens about 2/3rds of the way round the course and lost a bit of time trying to focus on the map at each control. Robin Sloan kept us in the hunt though and the team were able to maintain the lead until almost the finish but were pipped at the post for the Quaich by a young team of FVO bandits on Handicap 6+. It was still a superb 1st place in their handicap class and 2nd overall. The other RR team of Rob, Eileen and Andrew A finished 9th in their class.
Scottish Relays 2011 – 1st Handicap15+
The Edinburgh University Ladies A team were given a good start by Alice Leake, then Sarah finished with the team in 2nd, then Kirstin has the unenviable situation of running most of the last leg nip and tuck with her coach, Lorna Eades. Kirstin got the better of her eventually and stormed in to the Finish in 1st place to lift the very nice silver cup.
Scottish Relays 2011 – Ladies Open Champions
Unfortunately the weather at the Relays was quite windy and the club tent, which was being used for map issue, got shredded. The poles are fine but we’re currently exploring a couple of avenues so that we have a club tent for the 6-Days.
Shredded – Ian never liked the colour anyway !
Scottish Championships Results are here
There was good news last week with the announcement of the Great Britain team for the 2011 World Orientering Championships with Douglas Tullie securing one of the three places for the Classic Long race. Douglas missed the Scottish Championships due to being in France with the GB squad on a training weekend.