Wales win VHI 2013

[swat]

Not really. But they did come second!

[awk]

Shucks! I thought something dramatic must have happened after we left, like the entire England team being shipped off for dope testing!

[Spookster]

Shucks! I thought something dramatic must have happened after we left, like the entire England team being shipped off for dope testing!

Or a post-event rule change? Maybe double the points for any team whose team manager had a birthday on race-day?

According to a text I received (thanks JonX) the final (provisional) scores were:

1st England 277
2nd Wales 178
3rd Scotland 149
4th Ireland 114

Well done England, but also a great result (presumably best ever at a HI?) for the Welsh.

[afterthought]

The 2013 VHI was hosted for England by Norfolk Orienteering Club, and was based at YHA Sheringham.

Results of the relay (Saturday) and individual (Sunday) (which is not the preferred order for the racing but allowed it to fit better with the Norfolk Dumpling) are at:

http://www.norfolkoc.co.uk/pages/veterans-home-international-results.php

[Big Jon]

. Results of the relay (Saturday) and individual (Sunday) (which is not the preferred order for the racing but allowed it to fit better with the Norfolk Dumpling) are at:

Shame the VHIs is treated as an extra add-on rather than the focus of the event itself......

[awk]

Shame the VHIs is treated as an extra add-on rather than the focus of the event itself......

Norfolk worked very hard to make the VHIs a quality event in its own right ( a huge thank you to them all!) , and, as someone who was there, aside from possibly that swap and the late start on Saturday (which some preferred, but I didn't!), there was certainly nothing that could have been taken to indicate that the VHI was anything other than the main focus. Rather, the other way round.

Or a post-event rule change? Maybe double the points for any team whose team manager had a birthday on race-day?

Nice idea (at least this year!). As it stands, it did make rather a good birthday present!

[afterthought]

... certainly nothing that could have been taken to indicate that the VHI was anything other than the main focus

I agree. For example a thoughtful touch was the car park signs saying "VHI" on the Orienteering symbol background.

But back to the racing.

Relays: E-128, W-80, S-60, I-42.
Individual: E-149, W-98, S-89, I-74.

So the differences between team scores were a bit more for the relays than the individuals, but Wales beat Scotland in both competitions.

England had a very strong relay performance at Kelling Heath. There are two classes, and the eight English teams took four of the five top spots in one (a Welsh team was second), and the top four spots in the other (although a Welsh team was a mispunch away from second.)

In the individuals at Sheringham and Weybourne, amongst many things that could be noted Wales achieved a 1-2 in W50 (Alice Bedwell, Margaret Reynolds) and M40 (Richard Barrett, Al Powell). England did this in W45 (Vicky Thornton, Sara Campbell), M60 (Andy Hemsted, Ali Wood), M50 (Clive Hallett, Quentin Harding) and M45 (Alan Velecky, Jon Cross). Of the two runner classes Scotland's best were M55 in which they were 1st and 3rd (John Tullie, Alex Campbell), and W55 2nd and 3rd (Hilary Quick, Gill Berrow.) Ireland's best classes were W60 (Jean O'Neill, Teresa Finlay) and M50 (Colm O'Halloran, Aonghus O'Cleirigh.)

[NFKleanne]

I helped at the relays on Saturday, and the atmosphere was awesome. Was great to be able to see top rate competition, and put faces to names, I had read about in compasssport magazine
.

[Jethro]

Despite the obviously disappointing result for Scotland, I thought this was a very good VHI. The areas were surprisingly challenging for deepest Englandshire and the planners made best use of them and came up with some excellent courses. The layout of the assemblies/starts/finishes was very good which helped create a pleasant event atmosphere - the glorious weather did of course help! I have to disagree with Big-Jon - this felt primarily like a VHI event with anything else very much an add-on. I also think that it works quite well having the relays first with added tension for the individual day - much like the Ryder Cup. The craic and the beer was also very good in "The Lobster" on Saturday evening!

[Jethro]

I forgot to mention Scotland's other individual success - a convincing 4 min+ win by Martin Wilson on M65

[DavidJ]

I forgot to mention Scotland's other individual success - a convincing 4 min+ win by Martin Wilson on M65

.. and an excellent result for Berkshire as well then. If there had been an M70 class we might have won that as well.

[RCB]

Congratulations Wales on a historic 2nd place in the VHI to England beating Scotland and Ireland convincingly. Of the individual performances it looks as if Nick Barrable is on very good form; not just did he pull his team from three minutes down in the relay, he then extended that lead by another 5 minutes. In the individual he beat Marcus Pinker by over two minutes. Unfortunately the ranking points gained as a result are incorrect (apparently someone ran with a SI Card registered to someone else).

Well done Nick Barrable... and thank you NOR for an excellent event!

[greywolf]

It was a good event and Nick is running well, but there is a pretty obvious error in the results as uploaded to BOF - if corrected then the points earned would fall considerably. Looks like it's not the first time that this has affected these individuals either...

[afterthought]

Yes well done Nick, a relay and individual class win.

With the England teams so strong in the relay you might take the view that winning is equally dependent on who else you are fortunate to have in your team. But a winning relay does sees to have set people up for a good individual.

Nick's team mates in the victorious 2M+1W relay - Andy Hemsted and Jackie Hallett - also won their individual classes.

The other relay class (2W+1M) was won by Liz Godfree, Quentin Harding and Sarah Rollins. Only Quentin didn't win his individual class - he was second in an England 1-2 with Clive Hallett.

Having lauded the Welsh team in an earlier post, we might mention just how strong the England performance was this year. If you compare all the English runners with the best from the other three nations (one runner in 35/65 classes, two runners in other classes), England win in both men's and women's.

There are now a couple of photos of the prizegiving on the Norfolk website.