Moravian Orienteers pick up podium places at UK-wide CompassSport Cup in Dunkeld
Last weekend saw the Scottish heat of the UK wide CompassSport Cup in orienteering on Birnam Hill by Dunkeld.
The area, chosen for the assembly and finish, made it inevitable that everyone would have to descend an extremely steep and wet hillside, with a lot of equivalent climb earlier on the courses.
The summit of Birnam Hill is a delight with beautiful old trees on intricate, fairly level terrain, but the short courses were unable to get that far and had spent almost all their time on the very steep slopes.
Unfortunately all the UK top juniors were at a Welsh training camp for a few days so Moravian was without three very strong, would-be contributors.
Nevertheless, a fantastic entry of 18 members did attend with 100 per cent completion, all putting in great effort to be at or near their best.
Despite the slowness of the terrain, everyone seemed to enjoy the area, both for its aesthetics and technical challenge.
Out of the 15 clubs taking part on the day, Moravian ended up fifth in a close battle for second place between four clubs, a bunch which included local rivals Inverness and Mar (upper Deeside).
This means that Moravian don’t qualify for the final, which is maybe just as well as it saves anyone feeling under pressure to travel to Lancashire in the autumn.
Leading Moravian results:
Men 70+ and men 60+ Eddie Harwood 1st
Women Open Isobel Howard 2nd
Women 14 - Anna Howard 2nd, Julia Ross 7th
Women 18- Scarlett Britain 3rd
Women 45+ and 20- Rachel Sullivan 5th, Morag McLuckie 8th
Men 50+ Andrew Campbell 6th
