British Orienteering Championships 2024Mulgrave Woods, 13-14 April
Credit: Wendy Carlyle
ESOC turned mud and brambles into Gold and Silver at the 2024 BOC Individual, anointing Eleanor W80 British Champion and Janice Nisbet W70 runner-up, with prizes awarded by BOF President Steve Cram! Next day, Helen Bridle ran a spectacular first leg in the Women's Premier relay to come back over 3 minutes in the lead, but it was EUOC who finally came through to take the win with Rachel Brown running alongside her uni teammates Fiona Bunn and Isobel Howard. Others were less fortunate, culminating in an unreasonably vicious tree stump giving the ESOC team captain a black eye.
The British Individual Championships were held at Mulgrave Woods. Competitors eventually emerged both scathed and unscathed from woods that featured glades of bountiful brambles and mud slicked river banks. There were some great ESOC results, with W80 JK Sprint Champion Eleanor further earning the title of British Champion, Janice Nisbet taking a Silver in W70, and an additional 9 Top-10 placings. Notably, prizes were awarded by BOF President Steve Cram, who made an appearance at his home region championships.
ESOC results in the top half are shown below (see also the full results here).
M60L (46) - Keith Brown 21st
M65L (49) - Richard Oxlade 9th, Kevin Harding 10th
M80 (17) - Ian Pyrah 7th
W16A (29) - Megan Brown 12th
W21E (25) - Helen Bridle 4th, Alison O’Neil 6th, Rachel Brown 9th
W55L (32) - Helena Nolan 9th
W55S (13) - Judith Bell 4th
W70L (14) - Janice Nisbet 2nd, Margaret Dalgleish 5th
W80 (7) - Eleanor Pyrah 1st
Credit: CLOK & IOF Specification
When is a ride not a ride?
One interesting element was the use of an unusual symbol, a narrow ride with thicker green line as background. According to the IOF specification, this background line can be used to denote the runnability of the ride, which cannot be presumed! On Sunday, many of the rides had been recently churned up by a digger or were overrun with brambles, making them difficult to negotiate. This led to suboptimal route choices for those who didn’t spot the subtle green highlighting, with rides not offering much of a (free) ride.
Sunday's British Relay Championships were held just south of the Individual, at Hutton Mulgrave and Skelder Woods (this area had already been visited by the longer elite courses in Saturday's individual event). The courses were well-planned, mainly using the runnable eastern part of the wood, with tricksy short legs amongst the rhododendron bushes, which caught out many competitors. We were delighted to have 5 ESOC teams participating, with highlights being strong first legs from "the 2 Helen(a)s" - Helen Bridle finishing over 3 minutes in the lead in the Women's Premier (!) and Helena Nolan only 2.5 minutes off the lead in W50 - and a fastest 2nd leg from Margaret Dalgleish in the M/W70 relay.
Unfortunately there is no "I" in team, on this occasion literally. The remaining runs culminated in Alison losing her right eye (sight) to a vicious tree stump which collaborated with a stray bramble to take her out en route to number 1 (the resulting black eye pictured below). However, we are happy to claim a stake in EUOC's awesome victory in the Women's Premier, with Rachel Brown running alongside her uni teammates Fiona Bunn and Isobel Howard.
ESOC team results were as follows (see also full results here).
Women’s Premier (13) - ESOC Exterminators (Megan Brown, Lucie Hamplova, Sarah McAdam) in 11th, ESOC Extraordinaires (Helen Bridle, Heidi Ross, Alison O'Neil) retired
M60 (20) - ESOC Express (Keith Brown, Richard Oxlade, Kevin Harding) in 11th
W50 (10) - ESOC Excursionists (Helena Nolan, Judith Bell, Alison Harding) in 7th
M/W70 (13) - ESOC Explorers (Les Dalgleish, Margaret Dalgleish, Mike Smithard DEE i.e. non-competitive inter-club team) in 5th
Credit: Alison O'Neil
Turf tourism in Whitby
As ever, some of us enjoyed a spot of ancillary turfing and the nearby town of Whitby was a delightful place to do it with our fellow BOC turf tourists! Zones included the Captain Cook memorial statue & Captain Cook Memorial Museum, Whitby Abbey, the twin lighthouses on the East & West piers, Whitby Museum, and other notable spots.
The British Long event was the 8th event in the 2024 UK Orienteering League. There are more details about the UKOL, including the league tables, on the UK Orienteering League website. With the scores for these events included, ESOC is lying 19th in the club league. The latest score for each club is calculated automatically from the 15 best club members' scores (across various age class groups) - so the club members whose scores are included may change as the year goes on and more events are included.
Note that competitors who run outside of their age class (aka Helen Bridle, Alison O'Neil) do not score points according to clause 2.3.3 in the UK Orienteering League Rules which say that "Points will only be awarded to individuals older than M/W14 if they are competing in their age class. (It is not permitted to ‘run up’ and score points)". We are currently enquiring about this.
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