British Sprint & Middle Championships 2013Loughborough/Stanton Moor, 20/21 April 2013
A small ESOC contingent enjoyed these major events in the Midlands, with some excellent results.
The British Sprint Championships event was organised by Leicestershire Orienteering Club, at Loughborough University on Saturday 20 April. The campus is very large, and is a complex mix of residential, academic and sports buildings, with open grassy areas and some woodland, along a ridge. The heats and finals were in different parts of the campus, and there was general agreement that the finals were more technical, amongst complicated halls of residence with many small pathways and similar courtyards, most of which had groups of students enjoying the fine weather and shouting “encouragement”. It was a beautiful spring day with a great atmosphere, as everyone relaxed on the grass in the sunshine.
The classes with ESOC competitors had 3 parallel heats, and the total number of entries was as follows: Men’s Open – 109; M35 – 24; M40 – 33; M55 – 74; M65 – 53; Women’s Open – 77; W45 – 43; W55 – 36; W65 – 29. For most of these classes, 6 from each heat qualified for the A final. M65 and W65 were smaller classes, and 5 from each heat qualified. In Men’s Open, the largest class, the next 10 from each heat qualified for the B final (after a small mistake, Andrew Lindsay was unfortunate enough to miss the B final by 1 second).
In the final, results were often very close, and a few seconds lost could mean a result many places further down. Congratulations to Ray Ward, who won M35, ESOC’s best result. Claire Ward decided not to run in the final, after aggravating her Achilles tendon in the qualifier.
Other ESOC results from the final were:
Men’s Open C – Andrew Lindsay 2nd, Craig Nolan 7th=
M40A – Alistair Hindle 6th
M55 B – Crawford Lindsay 25th
M65 A – Roger Scrutton 6th, Ian Pyrah 13th
Women’s Open B – Rona Lindsay 15th
W45 A – Helena Nolan 9th
W55 A – Sally Lindsay 4th
W65 A – Eleanor Pyrah 6th
Results and Routegadget are available on the Leicestershire Orienteering Club website:
Heats results
Finals results
Heats Routegadget
Finals Routegadget
The British Middle Distance Championships event was presented by Derwent Valley Orienteers at Stanton Moor, near Matlock, on Sunday 21 April. The terrain is partly open heather moorland and partly steep slopes with intricate contour detail from disused quarries, which was very technical and quite confusing. The weather remained dry, though cloudy, and threatened rain held off until after the event.
Best ESOC result was from Craig Nolan, who had a great run to win the silver medal in M18.
Other ESOC results were as follows:
M20E (16 competitors) – Andrew Lindsay 4th
M35 (24) – Ray Ward 10th
M40 (30) – Alistair Hindle 4th
M55 (76) – Crawford Lindsay 36th
M65 (67) – Ian Pyrah 34th, Roger Scrutton 39th
W20E (11) – Rona Lindsay 7th
W21E (41) – Claire Ward 4th
W45 (49) – Helena Nolan 8th
W55 (38) – Sally Lindsay 11th
W65 (37) – Eleanor Pyrah 12th
Results are available here.
Routegadget is available:
courses 1-2
courses 3-13
The British Sprint and Middle Championships were the 7th and 8th events in the 2013 UK Orienteering League.
Other entries categorised under: Event Reports