JK 2012Scotland, 6-9 April 2012
ESOC turned out in force for the Jan Kjellström Festival of Orienteering over Easter weekend, with the Sprint in Livingston and the Individual and Relays on classic Perthshire areas, giving some excellent performances and podium places for a few.
JK Sprint – Livingston, Friday 6 April
The weekend got off to a damp but challenging start with the JK Sprint, this year held in Almondvale, Livingston. This is a mixed area of irregular buildings with complex ways through, separated by the river from a contour-rich area of re-entrants and hillocks near to the finish arena of the Civic Centre. The first half was fast running through the various pends and narrow pathways of the very technical housing estate. A subway under a main road led to the parkland either side of the River Almond, where the fast and furious running continued, but this time mixed with intricate contours, muddy paths and terrain plus confusing vegetation. This was the section where the race was won or lost, as route choice really became important. Emerging from the park, there was a short section of easier navigation before the flat out sprint to the finish. There were several outstanding ESOC runs, with Heather Thomson winning W35 by 56 seconds the standout performance. Other podium places were achieved by Ray Ward (M35) and Rona Lindsay (W18E) both getting silver, and Claire Ward (W21E) a bronze. Claire had a healthy lead (in sprint terms) entering the parkland but missed slightly to fall to bronze, only 1 second off silver.
The following ESOC runners were in the top third of their class:
M18E (46 competitors) - Andrew Lindsay 7th
M35 (29) - Ray Ward 2nd
M45 (56) - Mark Wood 15th
M55 (95) - Crawford Lindsay 25th
M65 (61) - Roger Scrutton 3rd, Ben Bate 14th
M70 (23) - Bill Gauld (running up) 7th
M Open (37) - Tyler Morrison 11th
W18E (33) - Rona Lindsay 2nd
W21E (55) - Claire Ward 3rd, Helen Bridle 8th
W35 (18) - Heather Thomson 1st
W45 (93) - Helena Nolan 6th=, Alison Cunningham 8th=
W55 (58) - Janice Nisbet 8th, Sally Lindsay 11th
W60 (57) - Margaret Dalgleish 14th
W65 (39) - Eleanor Pyrah 8th
JK Individual – Dunalastair, Saturday 7 April
and Craig a Barns, Sunday 8 April
The weekend saw the two individual races that are combined to form the JK Individual competition. The Elite classes (M/W18 E, M/W20E, and M/W21E) have a middle race followed by a long race, and there are two long races for everyone else. The event on Saturday was also a World Ranking Event, so there was a flower ceremony for the winning M/W21 elites at the conclusion of the race. This race was held on the wet and boggy combination of forest and partially wooded hillsides of Dunalastair. The vegetation mapping was sketchy in places, and led to confusion for many. The most successful ignored the vegetation and stuck to keeping in contact with the contours. The best performances were by Claire Ward and Rona Lindsay.
Claire had an outstanding performance, coming in 3rd on W21E, 2 minutes 34 seconds behind sprint world champion Linnea Gustafsson of Sweden. Rona
won the W18E class by 1 second, despite badly twisting her ankle between controls 5 and 6. The injury meant she had to forgo the pleasures of Sunday, missing the chance of a podium place overall.
ESOC was one of the organising clubs on Sunday, in the classic area of Craig a Barns, and many club members worked long and hard before, during and after the event. The courses had to be re-jigged as a result of the winter gales to avoid the worst of the windthrow, but it still provided a formidable challenge for most. There were excellent runs by Helen Bridle in W21E (8th) and Andrew Lindsay in M18E (5th), and the outstanding performance on Sunday was again by Claire Ward, who cruised round the W21E in just over the hour to win the overall JK title by 24 seconds from Linnea Gustafsson and take her first title in her first year as a veteran. ESOC’s only other podium place overall was won by Janet Clark, who came 3rd in W70L. Well done!
The following ESOC runners were in the top third of their class overall:
M12B (6 competitors) - Peter Fawthrop 2nd
M18E (37) - Andrew Lindsay 5th=
M35L (25) - Ray Ward 7th
M55L (94) - Crawford Lindsay 26th
M60L (86) - Roger Garnett 20th
M60S (29) - Bill Stevenson 6th
W21E (49) - Claire Ward 1st, Helen Bridle 10th
W45L (73) - Helena Nolan 13th
W55L (62) - Janice Nisbet 12th
W65L (39) - Eleanor Pyrah 8th
W70L (21) - Janet Clark 3rd
JK Relay – Newtyle Hill, Monday 9 April
After the rough, wet and technical areas for the individual days, it was a relief to run on the smoother, less technical but steep hillsides of Newtyle Hill. ESOC had 14 teams, in the A, B, E, F, G, H, M and N classes.
Despite Rona Lindsay’s ankle injury, we had an able substitute in Jo Stevenson for our Women’s Trophy team, ESOC Ospreys. Helen Bridle came back less than 40 seconds down, Jo had a good steady run to hand over to Claire Ward with a place on the podium a real possibility, and the women’s JK Individual champion didn’t disappoint, gaining enough time to come back comfortably in third place.
Our Senior Women’s team (ESOC Buzzards), of Heather Thomson, Helena Nolan and Alison Cunningham had great runs too and also finished in 3rd place.
It was a great weekend’s orienteering in classic Scottish terrain with some good racing and performances across the club. We were very fortunate with the weather, and there were only a few showers after the slightly damp start in Livingston.
Full results can be found via the JK2012 website and a selection of photos is now in the ESOC Gallery.
General photos from the weekend are available in this gallery, and there are links to other photos on the JK website.
The JK goes to the Chilterns next year, where no doubt the orienteering will be less rough but nonetheless still a major challenge. The dates are 29 March to 1 April 2013.
Crawford Lindsay
Club Captain
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