Moravian Orienteers score medal haul on trip to English Midlands
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A TOTAL of 15 Moravian Orienteers made the long trip to the English Midlands a successful one by returning with several medals.
The orienteers headed north to take part in the JK International Trophy, considered Britain’s foremost annual event.
The group returned with great results far above the club’s size.
Chairman Andrew Campbell had a storming run. After a massive collision knee-to-knee collision with an elite guy coming round a bend the other way, he picked himself up and won the bronze - just eight seconds off gold. He clearly would have won without the collision. By prizegiving time he was unable to walk.
Isobel Howard won the first of her three silvers of the weekend in W20Elite.
Day two was a middle race and day three a long one, with the two days adding together for the overall trophy.
The area chosen was unsuited to middle distance and huge amounts of rain all through the winter and early spring had made the forest very muddy indeed.
Amazingly, Saturday’s weather beautifully spring-like. The mud was really quite epic with controls in marshes intimidating many. Two controls were completely invisible – the flags were hanging but were so plastered in black mud that not a spot of orange or white were visible.
Three Moravians managed to get on the podium. Finlay McLuckie (M16-) won the long to overturn his third place after the middle and win the gold. Isobel Howard got her second silver of the weekend and Anna came third in the long to rise from sixth in the middle to a bronze medal.
Sophie Howard had an excellent ninth place in the middle in the highly competitive W16 field, and Eddie Harwood (M70+) overturned a poor middle in 10th with second in the long, to finish in fourth.
Kate McLuckie had a really good JK as a first year running elite. She top-tenned both days, being the fifth placed Brit in the long.
The relays were the icing on the cake. A beautiful Peak District area, nicely technical and very varied for a relay and with no mud.
Two Moravian teams took part, while Isobel Howard got her third silver of the weekend running Women’s Open with Edinburgh University.
Sophie Howard, Anna Howard and Kate McLuckie joined up to run the Women 48-.
Sophie had an outstanding start handing over to Anna in third place only 37 seconds down.
Anna stormed through handing over to Kate in the lead. Kate did not have her best run, and turned her ankle over early on, but came through hanging onto the bronze medal for a great team effort.
The boys’ team had to run the men’s short class and should have consisted of Michael Bishenden, Andrew Campbell and Finlay McLuckie.
However after his collision in the sprint, Andrew had to be substituted, and Men 70 got the job.
We all assumed that this was the death knell of any medal chance, but Michael stormed round the first leg coming in fourth less than a minute down.
Eddie nearly didn’t make it to the changeover area in time but ran as fast as his ageing legs would go.
He only dropped about four minutes and handed over to Finlay in eighth place, a little more than minutes behind third.
Finlay duly ran the second fastest leg of the day to bring the team up to a bronze medal.
