ESOC at the 2023 Home Internationals
ESOC members were involved in the Scotland teams for all of this year’s Home International competitions.
The Home Internationals are annual competitions between selected teams from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, with an individual event and a relay over a weekend, plus a social event on the Saturday evening. There are 3 different competitions: the Junior Home International (JHI) for M/W14-18, the Senior Home International (SHI) for M/W20-21, and the Veteran Home International (VHI) for M/W35-65.
The 2023 SHI took place on 9/10 September in South Wales, with the individual race at Merthyr Common, and the relays at Clydach Terrace. These are both technical areas that many will remember from previous JK events. ESOC’s Katrina McLeod was in the Scotland team. The results were very close, eventually resolved on countback, and there was controversy at the relays when several teams mispunched on controls that were too close together. The final outcome was a very narrow overall win for Scotland.
See this news item on the Scottish Orienteering website for an interesting account of the weekend.
Full results and a link to photos are on the 2023 SHI Results page of the South Wales Orienteering Cloub website.
The VHI was on 30 September/1 October in the Forest of Dean, in conjunction with the annual Caddihoe Chase. Both the individual event and the relays were at Mallards Pike, using different parts of the area with little overlap. The terrain is mixed woodland with good runnability. There were no ESOC members running in the Scotland team this year, but Janice Nisbet is the Veterans Team Manager. England won the competition by a good margin.
For more details about the weekend, along with the full results and comments, see the Caddihoe & VHI Weekend page of the North Gloucestershire Orienteering Club website.
The JHI was on 7/8 October at Sutton Park in Birmingham, deciduous woodland with an extensive path network. The individual event and relays used different parts of the area. Judy Bell is ScotJOS Team Manager, and Calum Robertson was in the Scotland team. Calum had a great run in the Relays. England had a narrow lead after the individual day, and extended this in the relays to win the overall competition.
See this report on the British Orienteering website for more details about the weekend, and this news item on the Scottish Orienteering website for a full report (scroll down!)
Team scores, results and links to photos are on the 2023 Junior Home International page of the West Midlands Orienteering Association website.
Other entries categorised under: Juniors