Success in the Sun for SYO
122 club members travelled north to the Lake District at the weekend to compete in the biggest UK orienteering event for almost 2 years.
The weekend began in Keswick on Friday evening for our older juniors with junior selection sprint races for the M/W16s -20s. Keswick was heaving with traffic and people, providing the ultimate urban challenge with tricky courses traversing the town centre. Early starters had it particularly tough as it was exceptionally busy early on. Immy ran well to take 2nd place on W16 and on a very competitive M16 course Conrad & Dylan had good runs taking 7th & 8th place respectively.
Saturday dawned warm and sunny and the action switched to Summerhouse Knott in the Southern Lakes for the British Middle Champs. Courses were very technically challenging and even the very best made mistakes, which makes SYO’s tally of 6 British Champions even more impressive. In the youngest junior classes Louis and Hannah topped M and W10 in their first major championship races and Alice had her first big success winning W12. Immy had a great run to win W16 and it was a double win for the Peel adults with Dave taking the win on M55 and Jenny on W50. There was a host of silver middles too for Maxwell (M12), James (M14), Euan (M18), Pete T (M45), Peter G (M70), Sophie (W10), Ella (W12), Freya (W14), Laura (W35), Kim (W45) and Lucy (W50) and also a clutch of bronzes for Stanley (M10), Beth (W12) and Anna (W14)! Fabulous to see so many of our juniors taking medals in their first major competition.
Sunday saw the turn of the Northern Championships on High Dam – a fabulously physical and technical challenging area. Courses were long and tough and many of us were out for a very long time, with the heat making it even more difficult! Yet again SYO produced a number of super performances with 8 course wins - Maxwell (M12), Euan (M18 Elite), Pete T (M45), Peter G (M70), Hannah (W10), Charlotte (W12), Kim (W45), Jenny P (W50); 8 2nd places – Louis (M10), James (M14), Oli (M21 E), Alice (W12), Freya (W14), Immy (W16), Laura (W35) and Lucy (W50) and 2 3rds – Stanley (M10) and Ella (3rd).
Northern Champs trophies are awarded to the 1st placed competitor in a Northern English club. SYO were by far the most successful club with a whopping 17 Northern Champions! Particularly impressive is the almost clean sweep in the junior classes with Louis, Maxwell, James , Conrad and Euan taking M10 to M18 and Hannah, Charlotte, Freya and Imogen taking W10 to W16! In the male senior classes Andy P (M40), Pete T (M45), Martin (M50) and Peter G (M70) were all crowned Northern Champions and Oli impressively took M21 E despite being a M40! In the senior female classes Laura (W35), Kim (W45) and Jenny P (W50) all took Northern Champion kudos.
For some of our members this was their first time competing in really challenging Lakes terrain and everyone should be very proud of themselves for finishing on High Dam, particularly those juniors who were out for over 2 hours but kept going and showed excellent determination to complete the course – well done!
A huge thank you to WCOC, LOC and MDOC for putting on an excellent weekend of orienteering.
