CompassSport Cup Scottish Heat 2024Birnam Hill, 18 February
Credit: Walter Clark
ESOC have qualified for the CompassSport Trophy Final, following a good turnout for the Scottish heat, and some great results.
Forth Valley Orienteers organised the 2024 Scottish heat for the CompassSport Cup and Trophy at Birnam Hill, to the south of Dunkeld. Birnam Hill is very steep in places, with many rock features and contour detail. There were two starts – the Near start, used by the shorter courses, was only a short distance from the town, while Assembly was 2km away and the Far start was up the hill beyond that. The longer courses enjoyed the best terrain and good views from the higher parts of the hill, among patches of pine trees and tussocky heather interspersed with marshes. Lower down, the terrain was steep and wet underfoot with a lot of bracken, then courses led around the foot of the hill to the Finish near the Assembly area.
It was a fine sunny day, and mild for the time of year.
ESOC counts as a small club, and was competing in the CompassSport Trophy heat, against 14 other Scottish clubs. Interløpers won, with 1268 points, followed by INVOC with 1241, then ESOC with 1238. The first 3 clubs qualified for the final, which is in Lancashire on 20 October.
ESOC’s counting scorers were:
- 2 - Short Brown: Walter Clark (94)
- 3 - Blue Women: Helen Bridle (98), Sabine Oechsner (91)
- 4 - Blue Men: Keith Brown (93)
- 5 - Green Women: Fran Daley (95), Hanne Robertson (90)
- 6 - Green Men: Richard Oxlade (98)
- 7 - Veterans Short Green: Alison Harding (97), Peter Halling (96)
- 8A - Junior Men Green: Calum Robertson (94)
- 9B - Orange Women: Emma Daley (94)
- 10 - Superveterans Short Green: Margaret Dalgleish (100), Mary Williams (98)
In the Trophy competition, a club’s best 13 results count, with a maximum of 2 in each class. Other ESOC members who were in the top half of the results for their course were:
- 6 - Green Men (36 competitors) - Crawford Lindsay 13th, Kevin Harding 17th
- 7 - Veterans Short Green (34) - Roger Garnett 10th, Les Dalgleish 16th
- 10 - Superveterans Short Green (16) - Ian Pyrah 3rd, Anne Stevenson 6th, Eleanor Pyrah 7th
Sarah McAdam (Deputy Club Captain) commented:
“Well done to everyone who made it out to represent ESOC across the Trophy and colour-coded courses this weekend. We had 35 club members participating, with some great scores across the Trophy courses. What makes the Compass Sport Trophy a truly whole club event is that everyone's run helps, either scoring points towards the final results or helping to 'block' points for other clubs, so every person who made it round contributed to a great result for the club. We managed to climb up to 3rd place from last year's 4th, showing that the winter training is paying off and giving us lots to build on for the year to come!”
Full results including team scores for both Cup and Trophy, along with Routegadget, are on the Compass Sport Cup & Trophy Scottish Qualifier page of the FVO website.
Further information about the CompassSport Cup and Trophy is available on the CompassSport Cup Coordinator’s page.
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