SLOW finish =7th at Yvette Baker Trophy Final

The SLOW juniors would like to thank the club for both moral and financial support to take part in the final of the National Inter-club junior competition, the Yvette Baker Trophy. It took place at Normanby Hall in North Lincolnshire, a flat area of parkland and intricate mixed woodland, hosted by HALO, earlier today.

SLOW had qualified by winning the southern heat at Britty Wood in October (see previous report). We last qualified in 2004, when we were 13th in the final, and this year we were =7th. Given our relative lack of depth we can be very pleased with this achievement.

The competition is a bit different in that ability as well as age is taken into account in determining who runs which course. There are 8 courses in all: girls and boys variants of each of yellow, orange, light green and green. Winner gets 100, 2nd 99, 3rd 98 and so on. The team score is the sum of the best 9 individual scores (with some limits on how many per course.)

The SLOW team comprised 12 athletes and 3 supporters. Most of the team went up the day before, by train and bus, and on Sunday walked across open and rainswept arable land to the event, with the reward (thanks organisers) of sharing a classroom adjacent to download as a base, rather than needing the tent. It was a good way to get the club noticed, and all in all worked pretty well.

The competition was dominated by Octavian Droobers this year, with three class winners and four seconds. The 2005 winners and ever strong Nottinghamshire were 2nd, with West Cumberland 3rd. Last years winners Deeside were 5th.

We had several excellent runs to carry us to =7th, and a few disappointments too. Well done all of the following:

3rd Tom Jones (Yellow)
3rd Ausra Miksyte (Green)
5th Malin Lindeborg (Light Green)
7th James McMillan (Green)
9th Greg Street (Light Green)
15th Ralph Street (Green)
16th Rob Jones (Light Green)
17th Audrius Janulynas (Green)
21st Matt Jones (Yellow)
27th Alex Robinson (Light Green)
33rd Charles McMillan (Green)
ret Ben Weiss (orange)

The supporters were Andrew McMillan, Sarah Brown and Paul Street.

The full results from the event can be found here: team results and full results.