Event Spotlight: Salford and London City Race Weekends (City Race Euro Tour) 2024

Salford Quays City Race

Written by Caroline Barcham, South East Lancashire Orienteering Club

On Sunday 8 September, SELOC welcomed nearly 400 competitors representing 9 different countries to orienteer on the newly extended Salford urban map. Despite early rain the competitors had a mainly dry run through Salford and Salford Quays with the opportunity to finish outside dock10 on the Quays piazza.

The Sunday event was supported by Salford Museum and Art Gallery, where the far start was based, and all competitors got the opportunity to take home a memento of Salford (a Lowry print) and all the winners got an additional Lowry book.

As well as our national and international orienteers we were pleased to welcome 5  local runners to their first orienteering event as well 12 families who enjoyed the Family Adventure course. We were also pleased to be chosen as the first Inter Services Urban Orienteering Championship (see below for their feedback).

Some of those who ran on Sunday also took advantage of the Friday night MapRun event based at Up&Running Manchester where 70 people tried out one of the various MapRun courses available.

Results

All images below are credited to Peter Cull.

Inter Services Urban Orienteering Championship
Written by Terence Desmond Dickinson, British Army Orienteering Club

Following the Inter Services Orienteering championship earlier in the year, there was the aspiration to add an Inter Services Urban Orienteering Championship. Navigation is a fundamental skill in all three Armed Services and orienteering continues to provide excellent map reading skills to service personnel.

The Salford Quays City Race provided the opportunity to hold the inaugural Inter Services Urban Championship at a high profile event in a wonderful area. The complex urban orienteering provided a different challenge to the competitors and resulted in some fast times, with very close results.

The overall team results for both the men’s and the women’s team championship was won by the Army, with the RAF men’s team only 92 seconds behind. The result for the men’s team was calculated from the top four runners from each team and for the women’s it was the top two runners. The individual championship was also very competitive, with Maj Sally Calland (Army) winning the women’s race just ahead of the next Army runner. In the men’s race, Sqn Ldr Phillip Johnston-Davis (RAF) pipped WO2 Des Dickinson (Army) for the win by three seconds.

Salford Quays City Race provided a great competition and thanks must go to SELOC for providing an excellent event on the Sunday. There was fierce competition followed by lots of analysis and discussion of route selection across all three Services and civilian competitors. Thoughts of next year’s event and how to develop the format are already underway.

Results

All images below are credited to Caroline Barcham and Peter Cull.

London City Race Weekend 2024

Burgess Park Friday Warm Up event
Written by Luke Bennett, Dartford Orienteers

The London City Race weekend is always a highlight for DFOK. For the last few years, we have hosted the Friday Night warm up event which usually takes place in one of London's Parks. This year was no different with our event in Burgess Park kicking off the weekend. 

It was a pleasant evening and it was the hard work of the organising team (David Dawson: Planner, Roman Bednarz: Organiser and Andrew Evans: Controller) that meant the evening went very smoothy with positive feedback from most, if not all of our competitors. We were also delighted to welcome many international orienteers including; Belgium and Norwegian Elites, Yannick Michaels and Øystein Kvaal Østerbø to our event! We were also delighted to put on an accessible course, opening up orienteering to everyone in the community. 

If you enjoyed the London City Race Weekend, you can relive the action again at our UKUL event in Thamesmead on the 26.10.24, with technical urban terrain. 

Results

London City Race 2024

Written by Alan  Leakey, South London Orienteers

The 15^th London City Race saw nearly a thousand competitors visit the City of London to take on the challenge of its medieval street and alleyway layout plus the renowned multi-level Barbican complex. Fascinating, frustrating or fun – or maybe all three, depending on your point of view!

Top level competition saw the Elite races won by Chloe Potter of South Yorkshire and top Belgian sprint orienteer, Yannick Michiels. In addition, being part  of the City Race Euro Tour saw a large number of overseas competitors making the trip to take part.

All images below are credited to Rob Lines.

Elsewhere, this was the second year that we provided an Accessible course integrated into the event. Although numbers remain low the effort required to provide it is minimal and we feel that it is a simple and effective way to increase the inclusivity of our sport. One of the best ways to increase numbers would be to provide a series of events throughout the year featuring Accessible courses which we could publicise. So if, where feasible, other Urban events provide an Accessible course we could look to build on that.

On the downside, the organisers had to deal with several issues during and after the event. An unexpected pop-up street market in a narrow street led to pedestrian congestion and unfortunately a number of competitors chose to run aggressively through the area rather than slow down, leading to collisions and a number of complaints. We also had access issues with the public areas of an estate to the north the Barbican, which led to the need for marshals to section off part of the course, unfortunately affected some of the later starters. And finally we had one competitor who decided that having a bad run justified being abusive to officials.

Outweighing all that is the large number of people who have written or approached us in person to say how much they enjoyed their course and the weekend as a whole. For next year’s event we hope to return to the Isle of Dogs and the drama of Canary Wharf – see you there.

Results

Ultra Sprint 2024

Written by Organiser Charles Spence, London Orienteering Klubb

The 2024 London City Race weekend concluded with an Ultra Sprint put on by London Orienteering Klubb.  This the fifth time LOK have put on an Ultra Sprint.  All runners complete 3 prologue heats.  The top 4 in each class then run head to head in a class final followed by mass finals for all remaining competitors.  The courses are about 1k with up to 30 controls.  For added excitement, all courses include sections in a specially constructed maze which is in full view of the assembly area.  The event provides high intensity orienteering and is also a great spectacle to watch.

This year the event was held at Waterlow Park in Highgate, North London.  This is urban parkland on a hillside and is landscaped with ponds, a wide variety of trees, colourful borders and grassy slopes.  We are grateful to Camden Council for their support with this event. The park also has a natural amphitheatre that enables great views of the maze and of competitors starting and finishing.



There are not many events that have four controls on the same tree in view of the start and assembly area.  It was fun to watch competitors checking that they were punching the correct control there and in the maze.  For added complexity the finals courses also had butterfly loops which meant competitors running in all directions.

With everyone able to run four times we had over 1,000 completed runs.  LOK are fortunate to have a great results team led by Paul Todd who can cope with the unique IT challenges of this format.  We also have experienced team leaders and are grateful to the 31 helpers, including those press-ganged from other clubs or non-orienteers, who made my job as organiser easy.  A special mention for Anthony Flick, Planner and David Saunders, Controller for making the courses so successful.  Also thank you to Neil Brooks who has created this video of the event.

It's a while since I have heard so many favourable comments from participants saying how much fun it was and what an enjoyable and interesting event it was. As one participant said, the format was an absolute blast and it was a fun day out.

Results