After the final race at Nonsuch Park on Sunday, and once the arithmetic of the handicapping had been applied, SLOW were determined to be second behind the series winners HAVOC – Havering and South Essex Orienteering Club. The score in the final race was 528 – 524.
Thanks to Mole Valley for the Nonsuch Park race. With their kind permission and support Sarah Brown ran a flapjack stall for the Orienteering Foundation appeal to support the GB Team in the forthcoming World Championships. Sarah thanks runners for supporting the appeal to the value of £51.20.
A park on a nice summer Sunday morning can be quite busy, and several passers-by took an interest. It’s good to be able to talk about the range of our great sport.
Thanks to The Bull for hosting our race on Streatham Common and Norwood Grove. And thanks to Gordon Parker for planning and organizing it all, and to the several other members of SLOW who helped it go smoothly.
Thanks to The Spencer for hosting our race on Barnes Common today. And thanks to Nikolay Kolev and Vesela Chokoeva for planning and organizing it all, and to the several members of SLOW who helped it happen.
It was a lovely warm evening for the second race of the 2019 park race series, kindly hosted at Imperial College, and organised and planned by Michael Crone. Thanks for coming along: we hope you enjoyed the evening, running in such a pleasant part of London and the challenges the courses offered.
One of the characteristics of orienteering is that the runner takes responsibility for their route. The planner makes it more than a run in the park by setting interesting and challenging legs that require the competitor to interpret the map, and make route choices.
Leg 9 to 10 on the long course is such a leg. There is a large building between the control sites, and there are two levels at number 9 . It’s a good leg, with there being alternate ramp and stair choices – which did you pick? (The Routegadget link below has the full map.)
But it’s a University building and it had open doors at least at some of the time we were racing. Several runners on the course ran directly through it. The map clearly does not have this “route”.
For newcomers to orienteering, oops. Maybe you didn’t realise or you saw others doing it. There are no disqualifications.
For experienced orienteers – and many of the transgressors are members of SLOW or other clubs – this is poor and you should know better. Please stick to the rules and don’t do this sort of thing.
If you can see from the map that there isn’t a legal route don’t go that way. Do not cross impassable wall /fence /vegetation /access forbidden /out-of-bounds – you need a different way. If a road is cross-hatched in red do not cross it even if you can. If you find an open gate or a hole in a fence that is not on the map don’t go through.
The serious aspect is that deliberate action of this type can cause us to lose access to part of a map, or even to be unable to get permission for future races: “last time your people did this…” In any case it damages the sport’s reputation. We need to try hard to maintain a good reputation, especially with site managers and landowners.
Of course it’s tricky at times – and most people make some mistakes some of the time, but really it is hard to imagine that so many experienced runners misread the map to think it was OK to run through the building here.
Leg 9-10, Long course, Imperial College Park Race, June 2019.
We have removed this leg from the total time taken.
Please add your route (and view others): Routegadget
The Sprint Relays took place on Saturday May 4th at Bradford University. SLOW had teams in the Open (4 runners), Veteran (3 runners), Super Veteran (3 runners) and Hyper Veteran (3 runners) races.
Edinburgh University won the Open Class.
Start of the Open Class relay with Fiona leading off the SLOW team (credit: Wendy Carlyle)Olin hands over to Dorte for the final leg of the open (credit: Steve Rush)Matthias heads out of the spectator control on leg 1 of the Vet Relay – the race with the most teams (credit: Wendy Carlyle)Matthias hands over to Abi (credit: Wendy Carlyle)Abi finishing with fastest time for the middle leg of the Vet relay (credit: Wendy Carlyle)Vet Relay Podium with Matthias, Abi and Paul taking silver behind South Yorkshire and ahead of Forth Valley (credit: Wendy Carlyle)
Pete, running in the SuperVet Relay, passes through the spectator control (credit: Wendy Carlyle) SLOW won the HyperVet relay – Paul, Sarah and Alan on the podium (credit: Wendy Carlyle)
Individual
The Individual Long Champs took place at Arncliffe & Kilnsey North on Sunday 5th May.
The new British Champions are Megan Carter-Davies of Mid-Wales Orienteering Club, and Alasdair McLeod of Airienteers.
David Roach, wearing the Luxembourg colours, finishes (credit; Wendy Carlyle).Paul Street (credit: Wendy Carlyle)British Championships – the 65s podium (credit: Rob LInes)
SLOW Results
W21E – Abi Weeds 11th
M21E – Yordan Kolev 38th
M16A – Olin Davies 12th
W21L – Fiona Tam 8th
M35L – Duncan Grassie 6th
M40L – Matthias Mahr 6th
M45L – Paul Couldridge 6th
M45L – Ross Arnold 29th
W50L – Dorte Torpe Hansen 13th
M50L – Peter Huzan 49th
M50S – Keith Davies 7th
W55S – Heather Walton 8th
W60L – Diane Leakey 16th
W60L – Maggie Roach 19th
W60L – Kathy Haynes 26th
M60L – Andy Jones 34th
M60L – Mal Lyon 40th
M60L – David Roach 55th
W65L – Sarah Brown – 3rd (Bronze Medal)
M65L – Alan Leakey 8th
M65L – Paul Street 15th
M70L – David May 7th
White – Claudia Mahr 6th
Forest Relays
The Relays took place on Monday May 6th in Middleton Park Leeds with the arena in the John Charles Stadium.
The start of the Women’s Premier Relay (credit: Crawford LIndsay)
The women’s premier relay was won by South Yorkshire and the men’s by home team Airienteers – their most recent previous win was 1978.
Yordan, Ian, Paul were 13th in the men’s premier.
Fiona, Dorte, Heather were 12th in the women’s short.
Abi, Matthias, Paul were 3rd in M40 (Bronze medals).
Alan, David, Andy were 7th in M60.
Sarah, Kathy, Diane were 2nd in W60 (Silver medals).
1. BorderLiners, 2. South London Orienteers, 3. Bristol.
Thanks to organiser Vinh Phuong Hoang and planner Dave Wright for providing such a great day, our controllers Helen and Ian Marsden of Happy Herts, and to Kingston Council and private landowners for permission to run in Kingston.
The Women’s Open Course WInner (@sloweb)The Men’s Open Course Winner (Steve Rush)
Organiser’s Comments
Thank you for attending the Kingston Urban Race. I thoroughly enjoy urban races and so I was glad to see a good number coming along. I wanted it to be a relaxed and informal event, I hope that was the vibe that came across. It was my first time organising a race and so I was rather worried leading up to it. The day ran smoothly and there were no complaints, which was a massive relief. The only thing that could have been improved was the weather – it was rather overcast and I was hoping blue skies and sunshine! The competitors enjoyed the courses, for which the credit goes to Dave, Helen and Ian. It was great seeing the competitors arriving back at the Hawker Centre with smiles on their faces and hearing the positive comments.
I was also impressed with the number of newcomers and children who came along to try orienteering. I hope you caught the bug and will come along to some more events in the future.
Thank you to the Hawker Centre for hosting us. The space and facilities worked well. Thanks also to Kingston Council for agreeing to the event, and the various private areas for permission. Finally a massive thank you to all the volunteers who made my job extremely easy on the day: Alan, Barbara, Don, Dorte, Ed, Fiona, Gordon, Heather, Heikki, Marc, Matteo, Michael, Natalia, Neil, Nikolay, Ollie, Paul C, Paul S, Raffaella, Rebecca, Rich, Sarah, Steve, Sue, Tim, Vicky, Yordan. Many thanks also to Duncan, who was not there on the day, but was the key contact with the council and getting permission for the event.
Lost Property : A watch (Geonaute) – please contact the organiser.
Vinh
Planner’s Comments
My overriding strategy
for my only attempt at planning a level C event was to keep it
simple, hence the single start and finish. My only departure from
this was the use of a smaller scale map for the real oldies (Course
5) which inevitably caused various printing problems, so I hope it
was appreciated!
As regards planning
legs with good route choice, I quickly realised that Steve had used
the best ones in the 2016 event but believe I offered a few new ones.
At this point I know
it’s customary for the Planner to offer profuse thanks to the
Controller, in an attempt to encourage them to offer their services
to the club in the future. Now I appreciate the actual reason.
Thank you, Helen.
Thanks to Alan for implementing my requested changes to the map and to Gordon (SI) Parker for everything else.
(And congratulations to
Vinh and Steve for coolly coping with my “toys-out-of-pram”
temporary resignation)
