Nopesport Urban League

[Neil M40]

John leaps up from fifth and can't now be caught. A good result from Bill Hanley in Sheffield would put him second.

According to my calculations Pete Gorvett can still win with a good result in Sheffield.

[Roger]

John leaps up from fifth and can't now be caught. A good result from Bill Hanley in Sheffield would put him second.

According to my calculations Pete Gorvett can still win with a good result in Sheffield.

Indeed! Good spot.

It was pretty late by the time I'd finished processing, calculating, and posting the spreadsheets. I nearly delayed writing the commentary; clearly I should have done so. Please flag any other errors (e.g. a few W21s nearly got supervets' points at Skipton).

[Roger]

Unless anyone spots any errors, the final men's and women's tables are now published. I hope that these tables agree with those used on the day at Sheffield!

Alice Leake ran up, but couldn't be caught for the junior women's title and nothing changed behind her. Second place for Craig Thomson was just enough to take the overall title from brother Stuart. Meanwhile in another family battle, Stewart Allison narrowly failed to overtake brother James for third place.

Code: Select all

Junior Women (W18-)                 races best 5
Alice Leake              EBOR  W18      6   493
Elizabeth Parkinson      NOC   W16      7   486
Amy Kimberley            DVO   W14      6   456
Kirstin Maxwell          RR    W16      4   385
Karen Maxwell            RR    W14      4   358

Junior Men (M18-)                   races best 5
Craig Thomson            FVO   M14     10   476
Stuart Thomson           FVO   M18      6   473
James Allison            LOC   M12      8   435
Stewart Allison          LOC   M10      7   429
Michael Adams            SYO   M12      5   419


Among the elites, Jo didn't run and Blanka couldn't improve, so they remained tied, well clear of Jayne Sales. Second place at Sheffield moved Dave Schorah up to second overall, and John Rocke moved up to fourth, but Nick Barrable was uncatchable. (edit after combining the two D Schorahs)

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Open Women                          races best 5
Blanka Sengerova         SHUOC W21     10   453
Joanna Halliday          OD    W20      5   453
Jayne Sales              SLOW  W21      5   398
Rachel Findlay-Robinson  SHUOC W20      5   392
Lesley Ward              SPOOK W35      7   389

Open Men
Nick Barrable            SYO   M21      5   475
Dave Schorah             SHUOC M20      5   456
Steve Watkins            AIRE  M35      7   453
John Rocke               LEI   M20      5   452
David Alcock             AIRE  M21      8   433


Wins from Jane Halliday and Martin Ward weren't necessary, but underlined their dominance of the Veteran classes. Steve McLean moved up to second overall.

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Veteran Women (W40+)                races best 5
Jane Halliday            OD    W45      8   500
Delia Kingsbury          WRE   W40      7   475
Jane Campbell            DEE   W50      7   457
Carol Edwards            TVOC  W50      8   454
Janet Adams              SYO   W45      5   447

Veteran Men (M40+)
Martin Ward              SPOOK M40      8   489
Steve McLean             SROC  M45      9   465
Roger Thetford           TVOC  M45      6   461
Maurice Calvert          AIRE  M50      7   459
Paul Thornton            CLOK  M45      5   428


Third place on the day wasn't quite enough for Jean Lochhead to overtake Supervet Sue Stevens; a win for Liz Godfree took her into third. For the men, second place for Peter Gorvett saw him sneak ahead of John Britton by a single point.

Code: Select all

Supervet Women (W55+)               races best 5
Susan Stevens            AIRE  W55      6   476
Jean Lochhead            EPOC  W60      6   474
Liz Godfree              DVO   W60      5   469
Glenys Ferguson          SROC  W55      6   466
Judith Goodair           EPOC  W65      6   451

Supervet Men (M55+)
Peter Gorvett            SYO   M60      5   483
John Britton             MDOC  M55      6   482
Bill Hanley              SYO   M55      5   468
Tony Carlyle             AIRE  M55     10   454
Jonathan Howell          WCH   M55      5   451


So, the first Nopesport Urban League comes to an end. 1654 competitors clocked up 2791 point-scoring runs. Arguably the keenest were the Women's Supervets, who had the highest average number of runs per competitor. A couple of years ago, who'd have predicted that the W55+ category would prove the keenest street-racers? The total participants in the Men's Veteran category (M40-M50) just outnumbered the 'Open men' (M20-M35).

Wendy and Tony Carlyle (W50+M55, AIRE) ran in all 11 races; both ran up at Manchester. Craig Thomson (M14, FVO), Blanka Sengerova (W21, ShUOC) and Mark Collis (M21, DRONGO) each missed just one race, while Stuart Thomson, Steve McLean, Derek and Claire Allison missed only two.

My impression is that making the divisions at M/W 20, M/W 40 and M/W 55 seemed to work well. Do you agree? Any other comments?

[Spookster]

Roger,

In Mens Open Dave Schorah is listed twice, once with 3 scores and once with 2. When those are combined, he takes 2nd place overall.

I received a request at Sheffield for a M65+ category in the league next year ("Super Super Vets?"). It's becoming quite a large age class.

Martin.

[EddieH]

Great job Roger, but I note a minor error - you have given me points for York and Sheffield, neither of which I ran. Unfortunately you did not then include these points in my total.

[epocian]

Martin

I would prefer to keep the Supervets as it is - makes me try a bit harder to keep up with the 55 year olds!

[Roger]

In Mens Open Dave Schorah is listed twice, once with 3 scores and once with 2. When those are combined, he takes 2nd place overall.

The cunning use of the pseudonym "David" defeated the de-duplication process: too many Daves and Davids in the sorted list. Now corrected; sorry Dave. And David.

I received a request at Sheffield for a M65+ category in the league next year ("Super Super Vets?"). It's becoming quite a large age class.

The totals by class within the Supervet category are:
M55 87
M60 72
M65 23
M70 13
M75 3
unknown 'VM' 1
(investigating why these didn't add up to the expected total led me to 'Ben Gugan +1, M12' on the Supervets course at Skipton: sorry Ben, you've been axed.) The total of 199 compares to 331 in Men's Open and 348 Men's Vets.

One reason why the spreadsheet doesn't give category placings is so that each competitor can calculate his or her own class position and take that to be the 'final' position. For example, everyone knows that even the very best M45s can't keep up with the top M40...

...you have given me points for York and Sheffield, neither of which I ran. Unfortunately you did not then include these points in my total.

A 'feature' of pasting from Excel to Google Spreadsheets seems to be that blank cells in Excel don't overwrite existing content in the Google version. I thought that I'd cleared everything before pasting, but you seem to have managed to slip under the radar and collect some uncleared points from another runner. Now corrected.

[Mrs H]

thank you so much Roger for doing the results - I'm thrilled to have hung on to a top 10 pleace - especially as I took two left shoes to Sheffield and had to go round in walking boots.

Please don't change the 55 supervets age group (even if you introduce a super supervets) as I'm holding on for one more year before I get there and then I want to try really hard and get in the top 5.

By the way - any news on next year's fixture list - it now takes over all priority in our orienteering calendar - and it might involve some heavy duty advance planning

[Wendles]

And my thanks too Roger for doing a sterling job with the league. We have thoroughly enjoyed the series and are already booked in for the Edinburgh weekend. I'm afraid I have to second Mrs H on keeping the age classes as they are although I would have scooped a third place if the cut off was at W50! I'll just have to hang in there till 55 too, street-O certainly seems to be becoming more popular

[EddieH]

For Mrs H, Wendles and others, book your flights up to Inverness or Aberdeen for the Moray mix weekend in March - great new area in the urban league plus a day in the nicest forest in the UK.

[NickC]

.....flying won't be necessary for Chester on 11th October (unless you care to try and leave the City walls by an unusual route!!)

[distracted]

Oxford will be back - 31st October 2009 is the date for the diaries.

[Angry Haggis]

Ooh, the dates are flying in for next year's urban/sprint races, can't wait.
The ones I know about so far are:

24 January - Edinburgh
25 January - Lincoln
7 February - Cambridge
22 March - Forres
4 April - Stirling
10 April - Newcastle
9 May - Nottingham
25 May - York
11 October - Chester
31 October - Oxford

There's only a few suitable cities which don't have an urban orienteering map done - I think a race in Durham or Bristol would be great. There's also I think an event being planned for next year in a southerly city in the UK, although I don't know any more at the moment.

[jab]

Shouldn't the juniors who ran the open at Sheffield have these points added to their points in the Junior class? It looks like that is how it worked in other races. Or have I missed something obvious?

[Spookster]

Ooh, the dates are flying in for next year's urban/sprint races, can't wait.

... with a grand finale in Venice, anyone?!