First major orienteering victory for Moray’s Anna Howard at the Scottish middle distance championships
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There was joy for Moravian Orienteering athlete Anna Howard after achieving her first major win at the Scottish middle distance championships.
Several other Moray entries landed podium places among the nine who made the trip to the championship venue near Alyth.
Two potential medallist entrants were unable to attend, Andrew Campbell through injury and Eddie Harwood marooned on the roadside by a breakdown.
The area was a treeless hill but with vast amounts of gorse bushes creating a maze in many places. Whilst the air temperature was very low there was no wind so the running conditions were very pleasant.
Howard rose to the occasion, not only becoming the women’s 14-and-under champion but significantly in a time that would have placed her fourth in the boys.
Michael Bishenden picked up a notable silver in M18- and Rachel Sullivan also won silver in W45+ only 2 minutes down on the vastly more experienced local winner.
Finlay McLuckie also achieved a silver, having a storming run, pulling back three of the five minutes he lost on the first leg.
Sunday saw the second Scottish Orienteering League race of the year in a mostly delightful forest near Aboyne, despite fairly persistent rain.
The terrain was not without its variety and some tough parts and sections of wind damage from the huge storms three years ago provided an interesting contrast to the easy running elsewhere.
Finlay McLuckie won M16- and the course outright by a huge five minutes over the previous day’s winner.
Anna Howard in W14- had another great run, swapping places with the previous day’s silver medallist to miss out on victory by one minute and to beat all the boys outright.
Neil McLean had a superb run winning M80+ on a delightful short green course.
This year a new, very short green course has been created in the league, designed for the very oldest and older competitors that want a shorter course. Sadly the length of this course was too short to enable it to go round the toughest area at the top of the hill, and in the end it was certainly less enjoyable, and probably slower that the short green would have been.
Amongst many retirements, four Moravians who entered all completed, walking away with the top three places. Donald Grassie M65+ Oonagh Grassie W65+ and Dougie Condy M70+ took the plaudits.
Meanwhile, Isobel Howard has been selected to run in the Junior World Championships W20 class in Czechia in July.
Also Finlay McLuckie has been selected to run in the European Youth Orienteering Championships in M16 in Poland in June, with his sister Kate a non-travelling reserve in W18.
