Junior News
British Schools Orienteering Championships 2008
On Sunday 16th November a team of 9 people from my school, Lawrence Sheriff, travelled down to Hawley & Hornley in Hampshire for the British Schools Orienteering Championships. There were about 1000 people there from over 100 schools around the country. Fortunately the weather was dry this year! There were a few groans about leaving school at 7.45 on a Sunday morning, but after a good run down the motorway we arrived at 10am and were ready to go.
First off were two of our year 10s, 8 minutes apart. Seeing as they're best friends, it didn't surprise us at all when they ran in to cross the finish line at exactly the same time - having met each other before the first point (I discovered that because their Splitsbrowser graphs follow each other exactly from control 1). Round the 3.1km Orange course they took 72 and 80 minutes. Our third year 10 decided to retire after 90 minutes and three controls not found.
Four year 7s came, and this was their first time doing orienteering other than one after school training session I had run on the school field. Our fastest year 7 completed his 2km Yellow course in 25:15 to finish 44th of 68, an excellent run for his first time. The others (a pair) came 48th and the other got completely lost, coming 56th.
Our two 6th formers were Alex Nottingham (also from LEI) and Ben Windsor. Well done to Alex who completed his first course in 9 months in 58:51 to finish 35th of 48 for year 12, a 4.1km Light Green course. I ran fast, only losing a minute or two in small mistakes, and was sitting in first position with a time of 26:49 when I finished. Then towards the end GB runner Peter Hodkinson from Bilborough College in Nottingham came in having done 4.8mins/km, smashing 2:20 off my time. So I finished 2nd overall which I was really pleased with!
We were going to wait for the prize giving, but then they told us they had to wait for EVERYONE to finish before they'd start it, so we decided to go back to school. Or, at least, the rest of the team decided to go back to school - because as we were about to pull off Jim from Nottingham High School offered me a lift home in their minibus, so I stayed for the prizegiving. I got a medal and a hat saying PGL that's way too small - about the right size for my cat. Three runners in one year group are needed to make up a team - so year 7 were our only age with a full team. Their overall score put them in 8th for year 7 boys overall. I won't tell you that the number of boys' year 7 teams was eight. Overall Ulverston Victoria High school won the competition, with King Henry VIII from Coventry close behind in 2nd.
It was a successful trip, and congratulations to everybody who ran! It's been worth all my efforts of getting people interested, organising a training session, and getting the team to come on Sunday!
Full results and photographs are available from http://www.bsoa.org.
Ben Windsor
2008 Junior Inter Regional Championships
NEOA - 28th and 29th June 2008
On the last weekend in June a not quite complete team of 21 people from East Midlands travelled up to the JIRCs near Richmond in the north east of England. After a smooth journey up north we arrived at Feldom Ranges, a large open area with small patches of thick trees.
The courses were not incredibly technically difficult but fast running was essential to do well, with the fastest times being 5.7 minutes/km. Luckily the weather stayed dry, although we did have fun trying to put up an old canvas tent in the wind! East Midlands had two finishers to count in each class. Among the 208 competitors, our top ten positions were Peter Hodkinson (NOC) 2nd and Ben Windsor (LEI) 3rd on M18, Mairead Rocke (LEI) 4th and Laura Evans (NOC) 10th on W18, Fiona Claxton (NOC) 3rd on W16, and Harriett Lawson (DVO) 7th on W14.
After everybody had finished we got back into our two minibuses and a car and drove to Richmond where the overnight accommodation was. Since there were no showers there, the swimming pool in the leisure centre across the road had been hired for us, so after a rather exhausting run we also got to go swimming! At the accommodation we had 23 of us sleeping in one classroom which was a bit tight! During the evening some people played Frisbee outside and some relaxed in the room. Our Frisbee broke and ended up taped together with as much tape as plastic! Dinner was at 6pm for us, with plates of chicken korma and rice with lovely cakes afterwards.
We then had a team meeting to announce the relay teams for Sunday and do some team stretching. Imagine a classroom of people all lying on the floor with one leg in the air, or all standing up looking like ballet dancers, it was quite amusing. And we finished with spin around as many times as you can on the spot, then sit down and pretend to drive a plane - you fall over even when you're sitting on the floor!
Next was the prize giving in the main school hall where medals were given to the top three on each course and the individual team results were announced. With much enthusiastic cheering from each squad as they were announced, with East Midlands in 4th place, and North West winning the individual event by just 3 points from Scotland. There were also some unexpected prizes for three people who had attended 6 JIRCs and this was there last one, including Matthew Wallace (NOC).
Now chaos! Everybody tried to return their chairs simultaneously from the hall, then everyone tried to cram into the dining hall to make sandwiches for Sunday. But we all got food in the end. Janet went shopping when we realised the amount of food we were getting at dinner so there were bananas and biscuits and chocolate-spreaded bread in the room too! Then a bit more time to relax (or play Frisbee) and lights out at 10.30.
Sunday morning was a fairly early start before seven so that we were packed up and fed by 8 to leave for the relays. After an hour along the A66 we arrived at Rossmede army base near Warcop, the first time it had been used for a non-army orienteering event. Despite being a smaller area than Saturday, it was just as fast, being mostly open with some small areas of trees. Courses had quite a lot of climb for the distance - there were a couple of round or over route choices. There were men dressed in army camouflage walking around and training: we were told to ignore them if they shouted at us, but stop if they threatened to shoot us!
The mass starts at 10am for male and 10.10am for female were both exciting to watch, and the commentary at the spectator control kept us on our toes as to who was going to win right the way through. The relays were in the order 16, 14, 18, with the 16 and 18 legs being gaffled, perhaps causing people confusion coming out of the mass start!
For two of our ladies teams everything looked fantastic as Fiona Claxton (NOC) and Jenny Evans (NOC) came in 2nd and 4th after the first leg. When the leg 2 runners came in things looked slightly worse, as 2nd dropped to 7th and 4th dropped to 11th position of the 28 teams competing. However, Mairead Rocke (LEI) recovered one team up to an excellent 5th overall position after leg 3, while the other one dropped one more position. The third team finished 26th. For our men's teams things were a bit disappointing, finishing 16th, 19th, and 21st of 30 teams, since to do well we had to be strong in every age group. The best men's place gain was by James Taylor (NOC) who made up 5 positions on leg 3 to finish 16th.
When all runners had finished it was time for the results to be announced and overall prize giving for the JIRCs. East Midlands women came 4th and men 7th out of the 12 regions, and so EMOA came 4th on the relay overall. North West won the relays by 6 points from Scotland, maintaining their first position from Saturday.
Finally the complete JIRC results were announced. East Midlands had finished comfortably in fourth overall, one of the best ever results, but not quite up to last year's third! This year's winners were North West, followed by Scotland then Yorkshire & Humberside in third.
We departed fairly quickly just after 12 for our journey home. Across to Scotch Corner was a clean drive, and we stopped at the services for the fat people to go to Burger King. A short way down the A1 we got a phone call from the other bus saying they were caught in an almost stationary traffic jam further south. However, our fantastic organisation did not include bringing a road atlas in the minibus with us. So we got caught in the traffic. We considered running along the side of the motorway would be quicker, but then decided there were more fun things to do in a traffic jam (see the photo). After a few rather useless phone calls to people who did have maps and another half hour in the jam, we managed to make our way across to Leeds and the M1 along other roads, and finally back to Nottingham after 5 hours!
Overall a successful weekend enjoyed by everybody, and particularly it being only my second but final JIRCs, I definitely had fun!
Finally, thank you to all the coaches and East Midlands Orienteering Association for organising everything and for the coaching throughout the year.
Ben Windsor
For more photographs and full results follow the links below:
Day 1 - The Start - Photographs
Day 1 - First Radio Control - Photographs
