Edinburgh Southern Orienteering Club

British Sprint & Middle Distance Championships 2017Milton Keynes/Aylesbury, 30 September/1 October

Just a few ESOC members travelled south to Buckinghamshire for these major events, with some great results, including a podium place at both the Sprint and the Middle. 

The British Sprint Championships event on Saturday was centred on Campbell Park in Milton Keynes. The senior heats were in Springfield, just to the south of the park, with blocks of housing, a network of paths and walkways, numerous open grassed areas and patches of runnable and non-runnable vegetation.
The junior heats and all finals were in Campbell Park. This has areas of open contoured parkland, enclosed by mixed vegetation with a path network including man made features, as well as lakes and streams.

There were parallel heats in most classes – for classes with ESOC competitors, the total number of competitors, number of heats and number qualifying from each heat were as follows:
M45 – 34 (3 heats, top 6)
M70 – 27 (3 heats, top 5)
W Open – 44 (3 heats, top 6)
W14 – 20 (single heat, top 11)
W45 – 23 (2 heats, top 6)
W60 – 27 (2 heats, top 7)
W70 – 12 (single heat, top 6)

Results were often very close, and a few seconds lost could mean competing in a lower final, or a result several places further down. ESOC’s best results came from Rachel Brown, who won the bronze medal in W14, and Laura Robertson, who won the Women’s Open class but is not eligible to be British Champion.

Other ESOC results were as follows:
M45 A - Alistair Hindle 9th
M70 A - Ian Pyrah 12th
M70 B - Brian Yates 10th
W40 A - Judy Bell 11th
W60 A - Janice Nisbet 9th
W70 A - Eleanor Pyrah 4th

Further details about the event are currently available on the British Sprint Championships website, and the event programme is here.


The British Middle Distance Championships event was at Wendover Woods, SE of Aylesbury, on Sunday 1 October, with the arena in fields at the highest point in the Chiltern Hills. The woods are described as “typical Chiltern woodland”, mostly deciduous with some conifers, and with varying runnability, on two large spurs separated by a central valley.

The best ESOC result came from Eleanor Pyrah, who won the silver medal in W70.

Other ESOC results were as follows:
M45 (56 competitors) - Alistair Hindle 10th
M70 (34) - Ian Pyrah 22nd, Brian Yates 30th
W14 (26) - Rachel Brown 6th
W21 (26) - Laura Robertson 4th
W45 (34) - Judy Bell 24th
W60 (29) - Janice Nisbet 6th

Further details about the event are available on the British Middle Championships website.

For full results from both races, see the SPORTident British Sprint & Middle 2017 results page.

These events were the 17th and 18th in the 2017 UK Orienteering League. There are more details about the UKOL, including the latest league tables, on the UK Orienteering League page of the British Orienteering website. With these events included, ESOC is still lying 33rd in the club competition. The score for each club is calculated automatically from the 15 best club members' scores (across various age class groups).

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