This year’s British Orienteering Championships finally took place at Newbourgh Forest on Angelsey last weekend (Oct 21 2001). The event was held under the auspices of the rescheduled Welsh Championships and National Event that was postponed from earlier this year.

Attracted by some first class terrain, several Reivers decamped to North Wales for the weekend and were rewarded with spectacular views of the sun setting over Angelsey from Caernarfon on the Saturday night whilst the rest of the country was drowned in terrential rain.

The area lived up to its name and provided some highly technical orienteering in a generally flat and fast area, where mistakes were easily punished. By far and away the best Reivers performance came from John Tullie, who came second on M40L, just three seconds behind the winner charles Bromley of EPOC, in a time of 63:59.

Continuing the family theme, sons Douglas (M14A) and James Tullie (M16A), both travelling with the Scottish Junior Squad came home in tenth and eleventh places respectively and Robin Sloan finished 35th on the biggest class, M50L, beating son Martin (who was finished 33rd in the M21S class) by nearly 20 minutes on the same course.

The first event of the 2001/2002 East of Scotland Orienteering League (ESOL) took place at Drumbuie Wood, Dunkeld, on Sunday (Sept 30). Despite the terrential rain, a small band of Reivers made the trip north and recorded some excellent results.

James Tullie from Teviothead came an exellent second on the Blue course, trailing winner Heather Hartman (Interlopers) by less than a minute.

Roxburgh Reivers’ domination of the placings on the Blue course continued with fellow Reiver Robin Sloan finishing just over four minutes down to take third place and William Bruce finishing 17th. Finally, John Tullie continued a Tullie theme by taking second place on the long Brown course.

Full results are available from the TAY Web site. The next ESOL takes place at Devilla Forest near Kincardine this Sunday (Oct 7).

Forth Valley Orienteers proved that local (and perhaps insider) knowledge is the key success when they got the result they were looking for and won this year’s 11 person relay at Beecraigs Country Park, Linlithgow. Despite organising this year’s event, FVO still managed to put together a winning team which, perhaps controversially, included amongst others the event organiser and beat second placed Interlopers by almost ten minutes.

Roxburgh Reivers preparations for this event were hampered by several key squad members being on International duty and it was a depleted squad that made the journey to West Lothian. In addition to this, a shortage of female runners led to the RR team incurring a rather unfair twenty minute handicap and meant that some teams were already sending out their leg 2 runners before RR had even started.

However, despite the writing seemingly being on the wall, a solid start from club secretary Robert Cranston on the first leg saw Reivers pass ELO and come within striking distance of several other clubs.

In an event of two halves, a possible tactical error led to Orange 4th leg runner Alison McNeilly come in before Reivers remaining 3rd leg runners, John Tullie and Martin Sloan, had even started their legs. However, John (2nd place) and Robin Sloan (4th) managed to pull out top-drawer performances and Reivers continued to rise up the rankings.

Despite final leg runner Jim Knox starting in the mini-mass start at 14:30, Reivers finished a respectable 8th and at the end of the day the scalps of Tayside Orienteers and ESOC’s second team were the cherries on the cake. The full results and splits are available on the FVO Web site.

After the event, Roxburgh Reivers head-honcho Judy McNeilly refused to comment on speculation in the News of the World that, in an attempt increase the number of female first team runners, Roxburgh Reivers were close to the sensational signing of former British squad member and World Champion Yvette Baker on a Bosman transfer. In addition, rumours that club Technical Director John Tullie’s coat was on a ‘shoogly peg’ were hotly denied by club supremos, who rejected suggestions that they were poised to lure South Yorkshire Orienteers’ highly successful coach to the Borders.

Roxburgh Reivers Team (1-3-3-3-1): Cranston, A Tullie, Hall, L Knox, J McNeilly, Maxwell, R Sloan, A McNeilly, M Sloan, J Tullie, J Knox. Subs (unused): J McNeilly, S Tullie.

After months of uncertainty, the Scottish 6 Day International Orienteering event took place in the Western Highlands last week (Aug 5-11). The foot and mouth outbreak had meant that no decision could be made on access to the competition areas until late May, which meant many months of preparation compressed into a few weeks. Thankfully the quality of competition did not suffer, and some superb Orienteering was enjoyed by over 3000 competitors at locations ranging from Arisaig on the west coast, to Laggan in Speyside, and down to Ardchattan on Loch Etive.

Although Day 1 at Achdalieu near Fort William proved to be the first event in several months for many Reivers, the cobwebs didn’t seem to last for too long and several club members finished well up the rankings overall. Gold stars in particular for Douglas Tullie, who finished an excellent 3rd place overall in M14A, and ended the week by taking second place at Fersit on Day 6. Also doing well were John Tullie (9th overall in M40L) and Robin Sloan (11th in M50L). Finally, former Roxburgh Reiver Donald Wallace, now in Galloway and running for Solway, showed the best consistency in the shorter M50S class with an overall win. Full results, including breakdowns and split times for each day, can be found at the Lochaber 2001 Web site.

Roxburgh Reivers were involved in the organising of Day 2 at Gorstean and Strathmashie, which was also the venue for Day 4, and provided both an organiser (Lyndsey Knox) and a planner (Robin Sloan). In addition to this, club members ran the starts and managed not only to be suitably organisied for most Reivers to have a run, but also for the sun to come out, ensuring enjoyable sun-drenched runs for those that decided to take part. Thanks to all club members who gave up their time to help (and especially to another ex-pat, Fiona Forrest, who roped in her new club BKO).

The sun also made an appearance later in the week at the impromtu club barbecue held on the beach near Day 5 at Arisaig, which proved a great location for those that suffered in one of Scotland’s most technical areas to forget about their ordeals. The photo to the left shows Douglas’s haute cuisine barbecued ‘Marsbanana’ – surely the future in intensive energy restoration for orienteers! However despite a great evening, several club members lived to regret that extra burger when faced with the steep hillsides around Loch Trieg the next day.

The next Six Days will be on the Moray coast in 2003 and promises to be another week to look forward to.