The Scottish Orienteering team, including John Tullie and Lindsey Knox, returned home in good spirits on Sunday evening having secured overall victory in the annual Home International match which this year took place in Northern Ireland.  The team regularly wins either the individual competition or the relays but this is the first time the Scots have won the overall match, beating England into 2nd place with Wales and Ireland 3rd and 4th.  John was in formidable form all weekend, winning his individual race by several minutes on a windy and rain-swept Magilligan Strand on Saturday then leading his relay team to victory on Sunday.

Closer to home, five club members travelled to Northumberland for the October Odyssey weekend.  Douglas Henderson finished an excellent 2nd over the two days, and there were 3rd places for Ian Maxwell, Karen Maxwell and Eileen Maxwell. Kirstin finished 5th.

The weekend also saw the first in this years South of Scotland League events which was held at Dunkeld.  On the Brown course Douglas Tullie took the honours, with James Tullie finishing 2nd.

John Tullie finally got his hands on a Scottish Individual trophy, comfortably winning M50L on Saturday. He was (is!) chuffed. Eileen also had a cracking run to win W45S and was chuffed too. Carol got in the frame with a 2nd place on W35S, and Jim was 3rd on M60S. James didn’t get “on the podium” but his 4th on M21 Elite was a great run considering his recent injury.

Best result among the younger members was Kirstin’s 3rd place in W16A.

We had 4 teams in the relays and managed some very respectable results. John, Lindsey and Robin were 1st in the H15 class. Ian, Jim and Andrew were 7th in the H12 class. Rob, Eileen and Carol finished 4th in the H15 class but were n/c due to being too young. The junior team of Sarah, Karen and Kirstin were 5th in the -48 class and first all-girl team.

Results are here.

The weather was brilliant, the scenery spectacular and Day 3 of Tay 2009 at the same venue will hopefully be just as good. We’ll have late starts that day so the bracken should be nicely battered down.

Another double orienteering weekend saw another set of Scottish titles for members of Roxburgh Reivers.

On-form Douglas Tullie continued his season by being joint winner of the Open class at the Scottish Sprint Championships held in Stirling on Saturday but was unlucky to trip near the finish line and lose vital seconds which cost him a clear win.

With information being relayed back to the commentary team from radio controls Kirstin Maxwell had a nervous wait knowing her rivals were close to matching her time, but the outcome was a well-deserved victory in the under 18 class for Kirstin by 20 seconds.

Fiona Forrest also made it into the frame with an excellent 3rd place in the Women’s Open class.

On Sunday the action moved south of Stirling for the second round of the Scottish League onto an area of open moorland and complex mature forest. There were wins for Robin Sloan and Douglas Tullie, 2nd places for James Tullie, John Tullie, Jim Knox and Eileen Maxwell, and 3rd place for Kirstin Maxwell.

Full results are here.

Forget all the other cup finals (the ones with the round ball) the FCC is the one to win, and Douglas Tullie did just that at the weekend, winning M20E by 8 minutes to book his automatic place in the British Team for the Junior World Champs this July.  You will remember that Douglas and James dead-heated in the same competition 2 years ago, a feat unlikely to be repeated.  This will be Douglas’ 3rd and last time at JWOC, as he joins the senior ranks in 2009.

The Scottish Junior Squad were also in attendance at the FCC, running in their normal badge classes.  Kirstin Maxwell had 2 good runs, finishing 4th on both days.  Sarah Tullie gave Kirstin a good run for her money on Day 1 finishing in 5th but had a slight blip on Day 2 to finish 18th.  Karen Maxwell, still in her first year at W14, finished 7th and 14th while Ian and Eileen were 11th/15th and 11th/5th respectively.

The forest was tricky, the courses long, the runnability mainly fast, and everyone agreed that it was a testing area. Culbin Forest on a sunny afternoon takes some beating! Roxburgh Reivers were in charge of Emit brikke issue before their runs so we were aware of all the sweaty bodies finishing with tales of woe. Douglas Tullie was the star again, taking 2nd place on M20E although he would obviously have preferred the gold medal. Everyone else managed a respectable run, some more respectable than others, but we all got our money’s worth.

We had 3 teams in the relays, all doing Ad Hoc. The planners had made no compromise on the TD5 courses and runners had to keep concentrating. The team of Lindsey Knox, Jim Knox and Robin Sloan managed a podium place, taking bronze only 4 seconds behind silver place. This was RR’s first British relay medal since 1996. The other 2 teams packed well in 11th and 12th place.

All in all, an enjoyable weekend of racing and a few weeks before the next SOL for some of us, the writer included, to get some technique training done.

Results here.

Roxburgh Reivers Orienteering Club are celebrating another British title holder after last weekend’s British Middle Distance Championships in Warwickshire. With every second making a difference, Douglas Tullie won the M20 race by a comfortable margin of 28 seconds for the 6.5km course.

Douglas had another excellent run in the 3.1km Sprint Championships the following day and was close to making it a double but was beaten into second place by 3 seconds.