British champs

[Mrs H]

Incredible but true - according to the Met Office the best weather in the country over the coming weekend will be the north east of Scotland - cool but dry both days and sunny on saturday - while the rest of the country has to contend with April showers - I'm really looking forward to it - as it's thick fog here at the moment i think i'll go and pack!

[EddieH]

We are having a lovely sunny week - my hot water tank proves it. However be warned the east wind is perishing - feels colder than the snowy major aces earlier this year.

[andy]

hang on..... a major O weekend of 2008 and it's not going to snow??

[redkite]

It will probably snow in the south of England and Wales on Friday p.m. resulting in all flights being cancelled (as snow moving equipment sent back to siberia for summer) and most of us not being able to get there.

More likley just Malvern will be snow bound.

Seriously, will be good to have a bit of decent sun after the weather of JK and sprint/middle.

[EddieH]

RedKite I am familiar with the weather patterns in this fantastic climate area. However looking at the projected isobars the wind is not in any direction that causes our wonderful climate. I do not expect a sunny weekend and think it will be mostly cloudy unlike the brilliant sunshine at the sprint, and at times during the JK. Fortunately the centre of the low appears to be tracking a bit further south than originally projected which should keep the strength of the wind down.

My guess is fairly cold and cloudy with the relay looking slightly colder.

[alcumbria]

Well I am hoping it stays relatively cold as I have taken an extra couple of days off to go skiing on Monday and Tuesday.The conditions look as good as they have had them all year

[Big Jon]

Skiing is great - many hills whiter now than all the winter so far, so you'll have a great time.... if its not windy!

Forecast for the weekend is good, so lets hope its correct!

See you all on Saturday

[ifor]

Thanks for the heads up on the Skiing. I was wondering what to do the week after will pack apropriate clothing as well as my mountian bikeing stuff...

Ifor

[SIman]

W20E (12) 7.4 km 185 m 25 C

1 Jenny Thornton CLOK 1:02:12
2 Hollie Orr EUOC 1:02:58
3 Anne Edwards TVOC 1:04:14
4 Victoria Stevens AIRE 1:04:37
5 Emily Benham SARUM 1:05:09
6 Joanna Halliday OD 1:05:58


W21E (33) 9.5 km 220 m 25 C

1 Rachael Elder CLOK 1:02:06
2 Sarah Rollins BAOC 1:04:53
3 Helen Palmer CLYDE 1:06:39
4 Helen Winskill SYO 1:07:50
5 Helen Bridle WIM 1:08:38
6 Kim Buckley SYO 1:09:56


M20E (20) 11.3 km 270 m 30 C

1 Hector Haines EUOC 1:08:04
2 Doug Tullie EUOC 1:09:53
3 Rhodri Buffett SWOC 1:10:59
4 Chris Smithard DEE 1:11:59
5 Dave Schorah SHUOC 1:12:42
6 Michael Noblett WCOC 1:18:11

M21E (69) 15.7 km 350 m 34 C

1 Oli Johnson SHUOC 1:21:20
2 Matthew Crane SYO 1:23:04
3 Scott Fraser EUOC 1:25:24
4 Jon Duncan WAROC 1:25:42
5 Neil Northrop SYO 1:25:44
6 Ewan McCarthy BASOC 1:25:55

[Mrs H]

You always have to wonder whether a weekend like this is going to be worth the cost of flying 4/5 people up/car hire/ accomm/meals out/etc etc but i have to say we had a great weekend even though we all did so badly that the family performance highlight was young Neville's 24 second run in on day 1.

I thought everything seemed very well organised with the minimum of fuss, the map didn't make me want to faint on the start line and of course the weather - what can you say - it was just such a joy to sit down on my picnic blanket in the sunshine and chat to our friends - what a treat.

[mikey]

Injured so didn't travel.

The individual day looks amazing. Wish I'd been there.

What are plans for future use? Scottish Champs in 2009? That would make a great long weekend.

[andy]

Injured so didn't travel.

The individual day looks amazing. Wish I'd been there.

What are plans for future use? Scottish Champs in 2009? That would make a great long weekend.

i know it's a good forest but 3 times in 3 years? I was recognising quite a bit from the 6 days on the relay map, including some similar/same controls

If they get Culbin west mapped then hopefully, but I guess not on exactly the same map again so soon.

[Homer]

It's very quiet on here today. I thought everyone would be raving about the weekend.

Well done to the Scots for a fantastic weekend's orienteering. Well worth the long journey up north. As Mrs H predicted, we even had the best weather in the country!

Dare I make one or two very minor critiscisms? I don't want to take anything away from the event as a whole which, as I've already said was a fantastic experience.

Individual: Brilliant. I don't know what all the fuss about the map was about. Very legible at either 1:10,000 or 1:7,500. Maybe the courses were a tad short for the Elite?

Relay: Again a very good event, but:
1. Surely maps should be collected from runners as they finish?
2. Was there any seeding? I note a number of top teams seemed to have the same course combinations throughout. This was partly due to the very (too?) simple gaffling.
3. I heard about an organisational error which affected one team in the W40 relay and led to their disqualification. I don't know all the details, so don't want to say any more but look forward to reading about it in the organisers comments.

[Spookster]

What was good:

• the forest was superb
• the map excellent (I preferred 1:10k; on 1:7.5k it's hard to judge distance)
• the course planning was challenging, both days
• the general organisation and hard work of the people concerned - thanks!
• the weather - blue sky is much more enjoyable than snow

What wasn't so good:

• failure to properly seed the individual start lists
• some competitors' individual race times apparently being wrong by 12 seconds because laptops weren't synchronised
• insufficient gaffling of relay courses - too many teams on the same combinations
• insufficent separation of top (should have been seeded) relay teams
• failure of the radio controls which prevented the PA team from following the relay race progress
• no collection of relay maps

I certainly don't want to criticise anyone, but I do feel some of the issues were easily avoidable, and we should not have them occur at future British Championships. However, I've come away from the weekend feeling like it was once of the best ever British weekends. Thanks again.

[the duncan]

One wee comment from me was they Orienteering seems to have gone all secretive again, other than getting a mention on Radio 2 on friday night, there were no signs anywhere to be seen, in a forest that had a number of bemused walkers in it.

and the sign off the main road

'BOC 2008' 200m, great, a real advert for the event!!!

thought we had got away from this type of thing.

a Very simple easy to do bit of signing and it doesn't happen.

great race on sunday though, shame about the lack of gaffleing though, maybe SYO were not deemed to be a good team so were not put in the seeded batch?