Nopesport

NATO put on a fantastic weekend’s orienteering in the hills overlooking The Holy Island, also known as Lindisfarne. The event compsrised a short race on the Satruday with a National event on the Sunday, and also hosted the Veteran Home International.

In the VHI England ran out as winners, although there were a number of strong performances from members of the other nations.

Saturday’s event was a great spectator-friendly race, with the first leg on each course and the final section of courses in full view of spectators looking across onto the hillside. The terrain consisted of open fell and some rough forest with some rather bogus control sites. A rather strong wind made running very tough when heading into it, though acted like Red Bull (‘it gives you wings’) when running with it. The nature of the terrain (fast and mainly open at the end) meant that the VHI relay proved to be a very dramatic affair, with the leading 10 teams all finishing within 1 and a half minutes of each other – which must be one of the closest relays in the UK in recent years.

The England team of Hilary Palmer, Mike Napier, Charlie Adams and Wendy Billing emerged as winners by 2 seconds from England’s 2nd team, closely follewed by a couple of teams from Scotland and another from England.

The short race 'A' course was won by former European Cross-Country champion and orienteering legend Carsten Jorgensen, who was a clear winner by 3 minutes from Martin ‘Bilbo’ Bagness, with Duncan Archer in 3rd. On the 'B' course (Veteran Men) DVO's John Duckworth raced well to win by 4 mins from Patrick Smyth. On the Medium (Women's Open) junior Alison O'Neil beat GB Senior Squad member Pippa Whitehouse by a minute and a half, whilst Ralph Street won the Short (Juniors and Veteran Women) by 32 seconds from AIRE's Ben Stevens.

Sunday saw another clear day in the North-East, though it was still bitterly cold. Thankfully the whole of the area was in woods, so one didn’t feel the cold that much after starting. However, the pain many felt by the brashings was to prove much worse than any weather. The forest was rough and tough, though not that hilly, but you still had to be strong as the planner’s had made a good job of keeping courses in the forest as much as possible. The many changes of direction in all courses caught a number of people out, and the vague vegetation boundaries which some people chose to navigate by should really not have been used to aid navigation. Even so, the map was good, and full use was made of it’s best bits.

England wrapped up the VHI with a number of impressive performances including wins from Tim Tett, Mike Smithard, Mike Pearson, Jane Morgan and a splendid 10 minute victory for Carol McNeill on W60. However, the largest winning margin in the event was had by Wales’ Gill Manning who won the W55 class by 15 minutes!

The National event competitors got to compete after the VHI runners, so there were a number of tracks already out which helped people achieve quicker times than some of those competing for their countries, although it’s unlikely that Neil Conway (M35) and Tony Thornley (M55) would have been beaten by any of the VHI runners as they both had storming runs to win their class by 6 minutes and 4 minutes respectively. Duncan Archer ran well in M21L to beat Ian Nixon and Carsten Jorgensen by nearly 4 minutes. Alison O’Neill won the W21L by a similar margin over Karen Heppenstall, with New Zealand’s Jenni Adams in 3rd.

The event was also the stage for this year’s Northern Championships, eligibility merely depending upon whether you ran for a club affiliated to either NEOA, NWOA or YHOA. This year’s Northern champions are:

M10 Aidan Smith SYO
M12 Martin McIver LOC
M14 Robert Kelly AIRE
M16 Michael Noblett WCOC
M18 Hector Haines AIRE
M20 Tom Bray UDOC
M21 Duncan Archer CLOK
M35 Neil Conway AIRE
M40 Charlie Adams SYO
M45 Tim Tett SYO
M50 Peter Haines AIRE
M55 Tony Thornley AIRE
M60 Michael Pearson WCOC
M65 Peter Lomas MDOC
M70 Andrew Gregory MDOC
M75 Jim Young LOC

W10 Lisa Quickfall SROC
W12 Zoe Harding SROC
W14 Alison Fryer LOC
W16 Alice Leake EBOR
W18 Lizzie Britton MDOC
W20 No competitors
W21 Karen Heppenstall CLOK
W35 Ruth Ker AIRE
W40 Wendy Billing SYO
W45 Ann Cranke CLOK
W50 Liz Campbell WAROC
W55 Diana Mitchell BL
W60 Carol McNeill LOC
W65 Elizabeth Hale CLOK
W70 Eileen Bedwell CLOK

Full results from the weekend, including VHI Relay and Individual, National event and Short race are here