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Charlotte Ward retains as Kris Jones reclaims

 

      

Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park provided the perfect back drop to the blue-ribbon British Sprint Orienteering Championships event.  It was not the classic urban or university campus terrain typically faced by competitors.  Runners were instead faced with intricate landscape gardens interworked with steep-banked climbs and long route choice legs to keep competitors guessing.

The day started out with a slight hitch, with starts delayed by twenty minutes with technical difficulties, adding to the tense nature of such an event. With only 6 to qualify from each of the three heats, it was all to play for. Though some could afford to take it easy, almost certain of their qualification, it would be a tough scrap for many; A final qualification would come down to seconds.

The qualification began with a blast around the 2012 Olympic village, but there was no rest for runners as courses were planned to be fast from the off, leaving competitors with a choice of forcing a fast pace at the start and the risk of blowing up or risking missing qualification by starting too slowly and never gaining the time back. This fast pace didn’t seem to everyone’s liking though, with nearly 60 runners being disqualified for crossing out of bounds, their fine navigation clearly suffering under the fast pace. For the Elite though, the qualification seemed almost straight forward. The final three start blocks of each heat of the men all qualified, with three previous champions in Kris Jones (FVO), Chris Smithard (DEE), and defending champion Murray Strain (INT), making his long awaited elite comeback after WOC 2015, all qualifying for the final. The surprise of the heats may have been Jamie Parkinson (OUOC), qualifying fastest of heat 1 by a massive 30 second margin.

In the Women’s elite, defending champion Charlotte Ward (HALO) was the clear winner of heat 1, but she would face stiff competition. Not only was previous champion Tessa Strain (EUOC) on the comeback trail, but there was stiff international competition in the shape of Laura Robertson (ESOC), winning heat 3. The heats also saw a break-through performance from W18 Fiona Bunn (TVOC), winning heat 2 by a clear 13 seconds over Alice Leake (SN), placing another name into the fray to fight for victory in the finals.

The rosy start to the day began to turn over the break between the heats and the finals. As the competitors waited the clouds gathered, and the forecast rain which had held off over the morning finally arrived. As the gargantuan rain drops, more like golf balls than water, hammered down on the assembly, the finals arrived. The sudden rain had dramatically changed the nature of the finals. Though sections of the park had tracked up during the mornings heats, the rain had begun to churn the ground up on the slippery banks of the Park – runners would have to work hard to avoid the river, and washing out of contention. As expected with the heat winners starting last, the pace increased throughout the finals, but these courses were a different beast to the qualifiers. Starting next to the Aquatics Centre, the competitors dealt with tricky underpass sections and wide route-choice options before heading to the Olympic Stadium itself. In the shadow of the stadium the runners passed through intricate gardens of the park, negotiating their way over the river before heading back over the park to the arena, in the shadow of the Park’s Olympic rings and a final uphill slog before negotiating a slippery drop to the final control. This was no Usain Bolt showpiece sprint, but a battle against nature itself.

Smithard was the first to break the 16-minute barrier for the men, clocking 15.05, a time that would stand until eventually eclipsed by Alasdair McLeod (CLYDE) by a mere 5 seconds. Only five men were left to take the crown from McLeod and it would take until the final starter, Jones, to do this. The arena was tense due to the lack of timing information – with the commentators relying on the old-fashioned stopwatch due to a technical failure – no-one was quite sure of the exact timings. But Jones had won by a clear 18 seconds, retaking the title he had sealed in 2013.

In the Women’s final it was a much tighter affair, with a mere two seconds separating the podium places. The first to finish was Fanni Gyurko (FVO), setting a blistering 16.34. Tessa Strain was next to challenge but could not surmount the time, finishing 14 seconds down. Bunn presented the largest threat to Gyurko’s lead first, coming in an agonising 1 second down at the finish in her first Elite sprint final. It was Charlotte Ward though, who would eventual surpass Gyurko, taking victory by a single second, and retaining the title she had won last year.

Thank you to the organisers for a fantastic event, a great setting and some excellent courses.

Provisional results from the British Sprints Championships can be found here.

 

Item posted by Jennie Taylor, Marketing Manager on behalf of William Gardner (SHUOC)

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