SOL 2, 2021Balmedie, 4 September
GRAMP and MAROC presented a double-SOL weekend, along with the 2021 SHI competition. ESOC competitors enjoyed challenging courses amongst the dunes at the GRAMP event.
The second Scottish Orienteering League event of 2021 was a Middle Distance race at Balmedie Beach Country Park, on the coast north of Aberdeen. The terrain is complex sand dunes along the shore and flatter ground on the landward side. In the dunes there is some loose sand, but mostly rough open marram grass with patches of scrub. There’s an extensive network of paths, both large and small, not all of them mapped, so it was very easy to lose track. The longest courses zig-zagged the full length of the dunes, and the junior courses had more controls on the flatter ground. The weather was cloudy with some sunny intervals.
ESOC members in the top half of the results for their course were:
Short Brown (17 competitors) – Mark Wood 8th
Blue (48) – Rachel Brown 8th, Richard Oxlade 14th, Helena Nolan 22nd
Short Blue (32) – Crawford Lindsay 6th, Hanne Robertson 14th, David Nisbet 16th
Green (30) – Maja Robertson 4th, Judy Bell 10th, Roger Garnett 13th
Short Green (26) – Sally Lindsay 3rd, Anne Hickling 7th, Eleanor Pyrah 13th
Orange (9) – Calum Robertson 1st, Anne Hoy 5th
White (2) – Maria O’Hara 1st
The Senior Home International (SHI) is an annual competition between teams from England, Ireland (Northern Ireland and Eire), Scotland, and Wales. This SOL event was held alongside the 2021 SHI Relays. ESOC’s Katrina McLeod and Rona Lindsay were in the Scotland team that came 3rd in the Ladies Open category, and with some other good results, Scotland were in the lead after the Relays.
Links to full results and Routegadget are available on the Balmedie SOL results page of the Grampian Orienteers website.
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