Moray orienteerers compete in international races at Aberfoyle
Last weekend saw a double header of major closed orienteering events in the forests near Aberfoyle. The older juniors were competing in the Junior European Championships whilst the veterans had the Veteran home internationals.
Finlay McLuckie and Michael Bishenden were both selected for the British boys team with Eddie Harwood were selected for the VHIs.
On Friday JEC had a sprint race round Stirling University which climbed into the very steep adjacent woodland. Storm Amy was in full force and the ground was very wet and muddy, not suited to the flat road shoes that some wore despite the details recommending not doing so. With all countries having six places per age group JEC is very competitive. McLuckie came a remarkable 16th in M18 whilst Bishenden was 4th Brit in a very creditable 39th place for his first ever international race.
Overnight saw the departure of Storm Amy leaving pleasant weather but very soggy conditions for the long distance in a very complex forest with generally very low visibility making large errors a real possibility. The courses were long and very physical.McLuckie was having an exceptional run in 11th place before making a two minute error “in the easy bit” near the end but still finished in 19th place. Bishenden finished in 40th place.
Sunday saw the relay in a more runnable forest. Each country had four teams and McLuckie ran in GB’s second team which finished in 14th place.
The VHIs did not include the sprint race on Friday. Harwood running M70 started the long distance with a poor route choice eschewing the road option and running through the forest that was liberally spattered with fallen trees. This enabled the Welsh runner to catch him up early on. Having caught he simply followed Harwood. Had Harwood had a perfect run the Welsh tactic would have inevitably given him the victory. Fortunately Harwood made a significant error arriving at the wrong control and was followed in his attempts to relocate. Finally he decided to drop way down the hill to relocate on a path. Shortly before reaching the path he realised where he was and cut left into the control thus getting free from the Welshman who continued to the path and then, on his own making an error of nearly half an hour on the following leg. At the end Harwood had to wait to make sure that the English were slower.
Scotland almost had a clean sweep of men’s age class victories but sadly in the Women 65s neither Scot finished, one with an injury and one failing to record a control. The resulting zero points for that class meant the England won the individual race by 10 points.
The relay on Sunday turned out to be very exciting. Each nation has four Man – Woman – Man teams and four Woman- Man – Woman teams.
Harwood ran a good first leg in Scotland’s second MWM team which finished in second place overall. In fact Scotland dominated with first, second and fourth places. Scotland also won the WMW first place but had less experience in the other teams.
With three English and one Welsh team finished Scotland needed to come in next in order to overtake the 10 point deficit from Saturday. Another Welsh team came in next meaning that Scotland had to beat the next Welsh team. At that point both teams appeared running through the spectator control almost togrther and we just had to wait.
Equal scores would mean a Scottish overall victory due to our larger number of wins. Finally the next runner to appear was indeed the Scot so Scotland duly won the overall event for the first time in many years.