Scottish Championships 2018Achagour & Dulsie / Roseisle N, 26/27 May
The 2018 Scottish Orienteering Championships were presented by the North Area clubs, with the Individual event at Achagour, and the Relay at Roseisle. ESOC was well-represented, with some good results, though only one trophy winner this year.
The Individual event took place on Saturday 26 May, with the assembly area at Achagour Trout Fishery, SE of Nairn. The run-in and club tents were in a pleasant situation beside the trout ponds, and the start was nearby, in pine plantation. All but the shortest courses then led out onto open moorland, which was tussocky, boggy and vague - very slow going. There were a lot of patches of gorse, and only the largest of these were mapped, with scattered trees and smaller gorse simply indicated by stippling, which many found hard to interpret. It was very wet underfoot and there were some deep marshes. The weather was warm and sunny all day, with a cooling breeze.
Roger Garnett (M65) was ESOC's sole trophy winner.
Other ESOC members in the top half of the results for their class were:
M10A (9 competitors) – Calum Robertson 4th
M12B (2) – Rowan Lawlor 1st
M16B (3) – Jamie Lawlor 2nd
M18L (5) – Ben Brown 3rd
M21S (2) – Tyler Morrison 1st
M45L (17) – Jim Martin 6th, Peter O’Hara 7th
M50S (11) – Finlay Ross 3rd, Mark Wood 4th
M55L (22) – Keith Brown 6th
M65L (20) – Les Dalgleish 8th
M70L (28) – Roger Scrutton 11th
W12A (9) – Maja Robertson 2nd
W18L (2) – Kerry Wood 1st
W21E (12) – Rona Lindsay 6th
W35L (5) – Gill Martin 2nd
W40L (8) – Fran Daley 4th
W45S (6) – Hanne Robertson 3rd
W50L (24) – Helena Nolan 11th
W55L (26) – Alison Cunningham 3rd
W60L (24) – Maggie Scrugham 5th
W65L (16) – Margaret Dalgleish 6th, Mary Williams 8th
W70L (15) – Eleanor Pyrah 3rd
The Scottish Inter-Club Championship (SICC) 2018 was held in conjunction with the Individual Championships, and ESOC came 5th in the Large Clubs category.
This event was the 13th in the 2018 UK Orienteering League. There are more details about the UKOL, including the updated league tables, on the UK Orienteering League page of the British Orienteering website. ESOC is now lying 14th in the club league. The score for each club is calculated automatically from the 15 best club members' scores (across various age class groups) - so the club members whose scores are included change as the year goes on.
The Relay event was on Sunday 27 May, in the northern part of Roseisle Forest, on the Moray coast by Burghead. Parking was on the seafront at Burghead, and Assembly was a short walk away at the edge of the forest. The terrain is mostly open pine forest on complex dunes, with a good network of forest roads and many smaller paths. The first few controls were challenging, in thicker forest with low dunes, and courses then crossed an old railway line into the steeper dunes near the coast, before zig-zagging back towards the finish. On the longer courses, the beach itself was a viable route choice. The weather was again warm and sunny, though it was windy.
ESOC had 12 competitive teams, with 2 podium finishes:
Women’s Open (7 teams)
ESOC Jedi 2nd (Laura Robertson, Rona Lindsay, Rachel Brown)
Age-class 8+ (8 teams)
ESOC Landspeeders 4th (Andrew Lindsay, Ben Brown, Alison Cunningham)
Age-class: 14+ (20 teams)
ESOC Falcons 9th (Jim Martin, Helena Nolan, Gill Martin)
Age-class: 17+ (16 teams)
ESOC Gunganns 8th (Mark Wood, Roger Garnett, Crawford Lindsay)
Age-class: 20+ (44 teams)
ESOC Naboo 8th (Alastair Lessells, Sally Lindsay, Richard Oxlade)
ESOC Gungans 12th (Margaret Dalgleish, Les Dalgleish, Keith Brown)
ESOC Lightsabers 16th (Mary Williams, Judy Bell, Ronnie Nolan)
ESOC Alderan 28th (Fiona Findlay, Paul Lawlor, Leonne Hutchinson)
ESOC Sith 32nd (Ann Thom, Katy Lessells, Mark Kassyk)
ESOC Rebels mp (Jamie Lawlor, Roger Scrutton, Ian Pyrah)
ESOC X-wings mp (Anne Stevenson, Eleanor Pyrah, Robert Findlay)
Junior 36- (13 teams)
ESOC Ewoks 2nd (Megan Brown, Rowan Lawlor, Joseph Lawlor)
Full results, Routegadget, and other details for the Individual and Relay events are available on the Scottish Orienteering Championships 2018 page of the Scottish Orienteering Association website.
The prizegiving for the Individual and Relays took place on Sunday, as well as the presentation of the new SOA award for Young Orienteer of the Year. Congratulations to Ben Brown, who won. For more information about this award, see this news item on the SOA website.
Crawford Lindsay’s photos from the Relays and prizegiving are available here.
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