Scottish Score Championships 2025Falkirk Wheel, 19 October
Credit: Crawford Lindsay
Forth Valley Orienteers organised the 2025 Scottish Score, and despite the poor weather there was a good turnout from ESOC, with 5 trophy winners, as well as 7 medallists.
The Falkirk Wheel, a well-known landmark, is on the west side of Falkirk. The map is bounded to the north by the Forth & Clyde Canal, and the area is dissected by two railway lines and a minor road, with limited crossing points including the Roughcastle Tunnel on the Union Canal.
The deep ditches and steep banks of the Antonine Wall also run through the area, and Rough Castle Roman Fort is in the western part of the map. The terrain was quite varied: mostly deciduous woodland and scrub, with rough open patches, open areas with short grass, and a network of small paths and tracks. There were many fences, often with barbed wire, and several people had tussles with these.
The start and finish were conveniently close to the car park. The weather was unfortunately wet, but not windy, and the underfoot conditions and vegetation were very damp.
The time limits were 70 minutes for M20-35 and W21, 45 minutes for M/W14 and below, and 60 minutes for everyone else. The 60 minute score had several different courses (with different sets of controls), allocated to specific age classes. This worked well as it allowed more control sites to be used, spreading competitors out.
The ESOC trophy winners were:
Luke Durnall (M10)
Ian Pyrah (M80+)
Sarah Crawford (W35)
Sally Lindsay (W65)
Margaret Dalgleish (W70)
There were medals for some other ESOC competitors too:
M75 – Les Dalgleish 2nd
W12 – Maria O’Hara 2nd
W18 – Megan Brown 2nd
W55 – Helena Nolan 2nd, Hanne Robertson 3rd
W65 – Alison Harding 2nd
W70 – Rhona Fraser 3rd
Full results, including Routegadget (very interesting - it shows which controls each competitor visited), are available on the Falkirk Wheel event page of the FVO website.
Other entries categorised under: Event Reports