Edinburgh Big Weekend 201424-26 January
Edinburgh University Orienteering Club’s Big Weekend had a strong ESOC presence as usual, and some great results in all 3 events.
The weekend kicked off on Friday 24 January with a night event at King’s Buildings, planned by Andrew Lindsay. This was part of the EUOC Fight with the Night series, whose events are usually low-key, but this one had a much larger attendance than usual, and also SI boxes on all controls. KB is a great sprint area, with many complicated buildings, gardens, courtyards, dead ends and hence tricky decisions about route choice – the obvious route was often not the best. Both short and long courses had butterfly loops to spread out the field, and the campus was full of orienteers running in all directions. Fortunately the rain stopped for the evening, though there were many puddles everywhere.
ESOC results in the top half were:
Long (60 competitors) – Chris Lewis 15th, Mark Wood 18th=, Andrew Dalgleish 20th, Heather Thomson 25th, Mehmet Karatay 27th
Short (43) – Alison Cunningham 5th, Roger Scrutton 9th, Sally Lindsay 10th, Maggie Scrugham 16th, Les Dalgleish 20th, Bill Stevenson 21st
Saturday dawned wet and windy, so the early starters in the Edinburgh City Race had a tough time. Later starters were lucky, as the rain eased and eventually the sun even came out for a while, but it was still very wet underfoot. This year the event centre was at the Pleasance, with the finish and spectator control at opposite sides of the courtyard. The start was a few blocks to the south, and the courses snaked through the Southside, as far as Pollock Halls for the longest ones, then north again into the confusing flats and pathways of Dumbiedykes, then up and down closes in the lower Royal Mile before heading back to the Pleasance for the spectator control, followed by another loop to the north. There were many steps and alleyways throughout, and plenty of baffling route choice amongst the constantly varying urban landscape of buildings old and new. Local knowledge was little advantage, as everyone found themselves in places they’d never been before, or which had changed dramatically since they were last there.
The best ESOC results came from Claire Ward, who was 2nd in the Women’s Open race; Roger Scrutton, who won Men’s Ultravet, Eleanor Pyrah, who was 2nd in Women’s Ultravet, and Rachel Brown, who was 2nd in Young Junior Women (12-).
Other ESOC results in the top half were:
Open Men (87 competitors) – Andrew Lindsay 19th, Andrew Dalgleish 32nd, Walter Clark 38th, Jonathan Ellis 39th
Open Women (49) – Gemma Karatay 14th, Fran Daley 24th=
Veteran Men 40+ (41) – Mark Wood 7th, Chris Lewis 8th
Veteran Women 40+ (35) – Helena Nolan 4th, Judy Bell 13th, Rachel Fawthrop 15th Supervet Men 55+ (42) – Martin Caldwell 6th, Mike Stewart 12th, Crawford Lindsay 13th
Supervet Women 55+ (30) – Sally Lindsay 3rd, Margaret Dalgleish 4th, Maggie Scrugham 7th, Mary Williams 9th
Ultravet Men 65+ (18) – Ian Pyrah 5th, Ben Bate 7th
Ultravet Women 65+ (14) – Fiona Findlay 5th, Katy Lessells 6th
Junior Women 16- (7) – Kerry Wood 4th
This was also the 1st event in the 2014 Scottish Orienteering Urban League. A link to the 2014 Scottish Orienteering Urban League tables can be found on the SOUL page of the Scottish Orienteering website.
Some of the ESOC contingent went to the ceilidh on Saturday evening, enjoying vigorous dancing, socialising, and the traditional address to the haggis, delivered with gusto by John Tullie.
Sunday’s event, the fourth in this season’s South of Scotland Orienteering League, was on Arthur’s Seat, and planned by Rona Lindsay. The weather started off even worse than on Saturday, and once again the early starters suffered the worst of it, with horizontal rain and strong winds on the top of the hill. The assembly area was by Dunsapie Loch - White, Yellow and Orange courses started near the loch, and the longer courses up towards the saddle between Whinny Hill and Arthur’s Seat itself. Each year brings a new twist to the Big Weekend Sunday event, and this year’s was the inclusion of a score section at the beginning of the longer courses, where a set of controls on Whinny Hill could be taken in any order. There was a lot of ascent on all the longer courses, going up Crow Hill as well as Whinny Hill, and in the poor weather, many found them quite tough; there were a lot of retirals.
ESOC results in the top half were as follows:
Brown (73 competitors) – Andrew Lindsay 10th, Craig Nolan 18th, Jonathan Ellis 29th
Blue (93) – Mark Wood 8th, Gemma Karatay 13th, Mehmet Karatay 14th, Walter Clark 17th, Crawford Lindsay 29th, Ronnie Nolan 32nd, Keith Brown 34th, Dave Kershaw 47th
Green (68) – Alastair Lessells 6th, Ian Pyrah 8th, Margaret Dalgleish 9th, Maggie Scrugham 10th, Mary Williams 19th, Alison Cunningham 22nd, Sally Lindsay 26th
Short Green (19) – Eleanor Pyrah 3rd, Janet Clark 8th, Jim Clark 10th
Light Green (30) – Ben Brown 3rd, Kerry Wood 4th, Lucie Duffy 8th
Orange (14) – Rachel Brown 1st
White (4) – Ben Waller 1st
Full results from all three events are available on the Edinburgh Big Weekend 2014 Results page.
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