Sheffield's Cliffhanger festival also played host to the UK's first Ultra Sprint Orienteering Competition supported by planetFear this weekend.

Conceived and planned over by Oli Johnson the event was actually run on the day by South Yorkshire Orienteer's as Oli was away on his honeymoon.

Based on the Orient-Show concept developed in Russia and France the races were intricate, intense and very fast with a high number of controls packed very tightly together; the final had 33 controls in 750m! The scale was 1:1000 so everything happened very quickly and it was possible to run of the map in seconds.

Photos © Lawrie Phipps, click to enlarge.

In the initial group stages and finals competitors had to race through a complex maze of crash barriers before heading into Graves park woods, on their return it was a case of finding you way back through the crash barrier labyrinth to the finish.

The complex navigation caught a few by surprise with punching the wrong control resulting in disqualification.

The final was contested by Marcus Pinker, Mike Sprot, Rob Baker and Neil Northrup running against each other in an exciting head to head match. Mike continued his impressive form this season to win by a convincing margin. Marcus's steady approach saw him home in second and Neil managed to get back in third place despite Rob's attempts to tackle him to the ground... not your normal orienteering race but certain in the spirit of great fun event.

We understand that there are already plans to expand the involvement of orienteering in next year's festival so watch this space for details.

Here is a video of the last part of the Ultrasprint final: http://www.inverlorne.plus.com/ultrasprint_final_last_part.AVI

Photos © Lawrie Phipps, click to enlarge.