2014 Scottish and British Champs successes
Winning MAROC M14 Team
Maroc members have had lots of success at both the 2014 Scottish and British Championships over the past couple of weekends. Special congratulations to British Individual champions Jake Chapman (M14) and Jon Musgrave (M50) and to the M14 British relay champions Jake Chapman, Luke Graham and Joe Wright. Read on for a full report of both weekends…
More photos in the 2014 Photo Gallery
The boys in the 14 and under age class have been in a league of their own this year, taking 2nd (Jake Chapman), 3rd (Luke Graham), 4th (Joe Wright) and 5th (Alistair Chapman) place in the Scottish Championships and both 1st (Jake Chapman) and 2nd (Joe Wright) in the British!! The star was obviously Jake with his gold medal, “it was a very warm day and the competition area was difficult to run on due to fallen trees and woodland debris. The competition was very tough but I ran really hard and realised all my training had been worth it. I will never forget the feeling when the last runner was in and I realised I was the new British Champion!” Joe recovered well after a disappointing Scottish Championships for him, “the British individual race was very rough terrain which is typically Scottish, so I think that helped. A steady but clean (no mistakes) run usually gets a good result for me.” Luke was really chuffed with his bronze medal at the Scottish Championships, “I had been mountain biking all week as it was activity week at school so my legs were a bit tired. This slowed me down a bit and let me concentrate on orienteering which definitely paid off. I didn’t think I had had a fast enough run but was really pleased with my result.” These boys went on to make a relay team in the British Championships in the under-14 boys category. Jake set the boys off to a storming start, coming back in the lead after 1st leg with a 40 second margin over strong contenders from the Lake District. Luke was up next, “I knew we had a really good chance, especially since Jake and Joe did so well yesterday. It was quite fast terrain and I had a good run but the marshy bits were hard work.” Luke pulled out more time on the next best club, leaving Joe to finish the job – never an easy task, knowing you’re being chased down by others. Any small slip up in navigation and they’ll be with you again, fighting all the way to the finish. Thankfully for those of us waiting nervously at the finish, Joe held on to his good form and brought the team home to victory, “It felt good to achieve a podium position twice in one weekend and I’m proud of the MAROC team.”
The Gooch family are making a name for themselves on the national orienteering scene, with all 3 youngsters appearing on at least 1 podium in the last couple of weeks. Matthew is the eldest at age 11 and had an incredible run at the Scottish Championships to secure a gold medal. Matthew does really well on the more technical courses, so this race suited him well. In his own words, “one of the legs (between checkpoints) was technical and I enjoyed it more.” Matthew was backed up by his younger brother Joel (9 years old), who shone at the British Championships, and judging by his comments post-race, he’s one to look out for in the future, “I like orienteering because when you win something it makes you want to be even better at it.” A superstar in the making is young Ruth, who at 6 years of age is tackling orienteering courses alone and came home with a gold medal in the under 10 B class at the British Championships! Ruth said, “it was brilliant being on the podium.”
The Campbell twins from Banchory are ensuring a fair divide of the glory between them, with both of them frequenting the podium. First up was Eilidh, who battled round a tough Scottish Championships course to finish in silver medal position, behind a girl from Stirling. Kirsty had a disappointing run here, but more than made up for it with a strong run at the British Championships to give her a bronze medal. What made the British Championships even better for the girls, was that Eilidh finished in 4th place, just behind Kirsty! These 2 made up two thirds of the girls under-14 age class relay team. Amber Graham at just 10 years old was brought up into the team to race with the 2 older girls. There was a lot of pressure on Amber to have a good run, after Eilidh had a fast first leg coming back in the leading pack with both a team from the Lake District and Chester. Amber said, “I had a good run but was so disappointed to hear that I had mis-punched but then I was told it was a problem with the computer.” After the relief of finding out that they hadn’t been disqualified after all, the girls were waiting in anticipation for Kirsty, who had set off a few minutes behind the Lake District team and 30 seconds up on the team from Chester. The girls were thrilled when they saw Kirsty running up the finish line having held her position to take silver medal position!! Amber commented, “It was really exciting to be second and be on the podium. I want to be in the same team with Kirsty and Eilidh next year and I am really pleased I ran in the older class even though I am only 10!”
In what was possibly the most exciting race of the day for us at the Scottish Championships relay, it was all down to the final sprint for the line in the youngest juniors class where boys and girls can be mixed up and their age classes added together had to be less than 36. It was actually a team from Stirling who went out on last leg in the lead, with Matthew Gooch chasing them down (helped by his team mates Grant McMurtrie and Amber Graham), followed in quick succession by John Getliff for our other MAROC team (also including Ewan Musgrave and Joel Gooch), a team from Oban and another team from Stirling. Nervously biting our fingernails, we were standing at the finish line waiting for a glimpse of the yellow and blue of our running tops. We were so excited when we could see not one but two MAROC tops appear on the horizon! With them was the team from Oban, but we seemed to have dropped the Stirling teams! The club went wild for John and Matthew as they stormed towards the finish line! John managed to cross the line first, with the Oban team managing to sneak in between us as Matthew crossed in time for a bronze medal position.
Although the club have an impressive cohort of juniors, we have some speedy adults too! Jon Musgrave has added the men’s 50 age class trophy to his collection. He had this to say about his day, “I decided I wouldn't bother about speed, just try to run steadily and think ‘strong’ - mind and body. I wobbled a little at number 5 (where many others came to grief) but my error was due to misreading the description and looking round the crag rather than the boulder! The legs across the heather I just tried to keep running and looking ahead to sport easier running lines. I kept battling to the end - and even managed to beat Ewan (son) on the run-in! Getting onto the podium was very satisfying and winning was a complete surprise - I have had 2 years where I've finished 4th and 6th at the British Orienteering Championships despite preparing better and running harder, so I felt maybe my best years were behind me. I think perhaps the toughness of the terrain slowed the fast runners and caused most runners to make significant errors.”
In other age classes, there have been others with podium finishes. At the Scottish Championships: Ewan McMillan 2nd M16A, Joshua Dudley and Callum Roberts 1st and 2nd Men’s 20 Elite, Abigail Mason 3rd W16A, John Rocke 3rd Men’s 21 Elite and Andy Tivendale 2nd M65. At the British Championships we also had top 3’s for: Joshua Dudley on M20E and Frances Wright 3rd W20E. In the relays, we also had the girls 18 and under team in a closely fought battle at the British Championships that saw them finish in 3rd (Megan Ricketts, Rosie Getliff and Abigail Mason), whilst at the Scottish Championships, Jake Chapman, Eilidh Campbell and Luke Graham were 3rd in their relay class. Two junior teams ran in the Scottish Relay Handicap classes which include all the adult teams. Ross McMurtrie, Rosie Getliff and Ewan McMillan not only finished as first junior team to claim the title of Scottish Junior Relay Champions, but also beat all of the adult teams to claim the overall Handicap trophy too.
Well done to all!
More photos in the Photo Gallery 2014