News
News
Latest news
Following the British Middle Championships on Saturday 27 April, CLARO organised the Northern Championships which took place at Kilnsey South. Here, organiser Mike Cope and Planner Vicky Bailey give their insights into the area where the event was hosted and how the event went.
Ideas about CLARO hosting the Northern Championships alongside AIRE hosting the British Middles were discussed many years ago. CLARO’s own areas are limited for a big event so the club was more than happy to borrow an AIRE area.
All really started almost 2 years ago when dates were fixed, CLARO agreed to participate, Kilnsey South was chosen and an organiser and planners were found. Kilnsey is complicated though with permission needed from Natural England, a landowner, 4 farmers, Long Ashes Caravan Park and Threshfield Quarry Trust. Natural England was the biggest worry and not until their permission was granted could other permissions be firmed up. And it was found that Natural England cannot give an orienteering club permission for an event. They can give landowners and farmers permission to allow an orienteering club to hold an event. So which comes first? It all took a very long time. Outline permissions were obtained from all, course planning was started, but it was only in September 2023 that it was possible to confirm that the event could take place.
Kilnsey is complicated for other reasons. We learned at JK 2016 that relying on a field for parking in March/April is not a good idea. Emergency arrangements were needed just before that event when it was clear that a nicely sloping parking field with top access and a lower exit used for maybe a thousand cars for the Kilnsey Show in the summer would just be too wet in March/April. Threshfield Quarry is massive and can swallow up lots of cars on hard ground. But it means a long walk to a start and from a finish. It was thought that this would put a lot of people off, though in the end it didn’t. Cars for the event easily fitted into the quarry with hardly any hold ups even though much of the parking near the quarry entrance was initially taken up by Fellsman Hilke competitors returning from their event.
Kilnsey South rises to 450m. With a north wind and rain it can be a serious concern. Competitors were warned when the event was first advertised that a waterproof hooded top might be compulsory. A few days before the event all competitors were informed that such tops would be compulsory. It was very cold on the day when the start team went off to set up and early starting helpers went off at 10 o’clock. Later starters were a bit luckier.
The area is used for farming sheep and cattle. This gives two problems. There are lots of walls and fences to keep the animals where they should be, and where would the animals be on the day of the event? To a non-farmer, the latter seems simple, but farmers often don’t know where their animals will have to be, as it depends on the weather, the progress of lambing and so many other jobs that have to be done.
Yorkshire Dales walls and fences are big and they need big stiles to cross them where there are no gates. Competitors on the longer courses were treated to a variety of ladder stiles, milk crate steps, a crawl through and a specially built step stile near the end capable of taking 700 plus competitors at a rate of 4 or 5 a minute.
The highlights of the day came as the first competitors returned smiling and giving very positive comments about their courses and the arrangements. At the same time the weather started to improve. And then when it improved further the ice cream van started doing business and it was warm enough for competitors to be standing around looking at results and discussing their courses.
CLARO is a small club and this was the biggest event the club had ever taken on. Some much appreciated help came from elsewhere, but members rose to the challenge and did an excellent job on the day. For the rest of the year the club will revert to hosting evening and family events with regionals in June and September. This will be a relative rest before helping with the JK in 2025.
Northern Championships 2024 results.
Kilnsey planner Vicky Bailey's perspective
Planning on Kilnsey was a challenge for all the practical reasons Mike has mentioned, but also because as planners we had two hard acts to follow in the shape of 2016’s epic acts-of-God JK and AIRE’s sunny summer special in 2018. It seemed appropriate then that our event served up something in between; on the day, a moderately grim start melting into a modestly mild finish; in the lead up, a catalogue of every other available weather, never friendly enough for shorts but nothing so hostile that it saw us off the hill. No sun, no hail strikes, but come the day: a sunburst of primroses.
With the assembly area already fixed we were limited with how much we could vary from AIRE’s event, which had used the same quarry for car parking. Early efforts to find a novel start location were quickly abandoned – you didn’t want a longer walk to the start, did you? But for the finish we gambled on a short walk back to assembly for the fun of a combined finish with the White and Yellow courses in the caravan park. This also left us with a little more length in the courses, which meant a better share of Kilnsey proper for the shortest senior courses before the inevitable march off the hill. For the longer courses, Mike and Chris’s efforts with permissions and crossing points opened up access to additional areas not used since the JK – a big help for keeping things fresh. Planning tactics evolved over the thrashing-out process. Our early strategy of avoiding long legs crossing the walls resulted in somewhat bland Middle-style courses that lacked “story”. In the end, using the walls to set up macro route choices provided better structure, and made for some entertaining post-race analysis on Routegadget. Every crossing point was worth it, Mike, honest!
The most memorable part of planning at Kilnsey has been the efforts undertaken by so many volunteers to overcome its challenges. Fathomless feats of endurance and ingenuity! An alphabetised schedule of animal-dependent crossing point logistics. A 60kg sheep-proof control marking solution! Dauntless control collectors taking on longer loops than their original courses and a map layout for every permutation of scale and paper size. The amount of time and care that goes into these events is in equal parts scary and inspiring. My tip for anyone considering taking on something similar is to get yourself a co-planner. Find one who always finds time to be slightly less busy when you are super busy; who has a seemingly exhaustible supply of patience, and a very good recipe for flapjack – then no amount of trans-Pennine weather tantrums and late-night PDF checking can get you down for long!
Last weekend the British Middle Championships took place at Danefield, Otley. In this blog, organiser Chris Burden tells us more about the planning process for this year's event.
Written by Organiser Chris Burden with contribution from planner David Williams.
The choice of areas seems to go back a long way; certainly several years before Covid disrupted the events schedule.
The original area we thought of using for the Middles, was discovered while a few of us were on a mountain bike ride deeper in the Dales. Danefield was originally only the fallback if the Dales area didn’t prove viable. As it turned out, Danefield, an old favourite, proved far the better area. The Dales area was not, as a result pursued, but a new neighbouring area has proved excellent, and will be used for a Dales Weekend Classic Distance event in 2025.
Danefield is owned by Leeds City Council and access is managed through their Events in Park team who are always very supportive of orienteering.
David Williams, the planner, identified a possible field for the arena, which we had never used previously; the field just to the south of the one we eventually used. This allowed him to use the best of the area. He structured the courses Jan–March 2023 at the same time coordinating with Tony Thornley producing the completely revised map off new LIDAR data. By this time a year ago to allow review in competition condition the courses were more or less fully planned and controlled. Having had input during April 2023 from David Bowman assistant planner and Mark Garside (WCH) controller. Subsequently courses and map were given constant minor amendments and updates to take account of the storms, wet conditions and middle distance RWT rule changes.
The parking field has become a regular for us over the past 15 years, when we hold Regional events at Danefield. We knew it was well drained. It has coped admirably with the cars for all previous events. We’ve checked it regularly throughout this very wet winter, and never had any doubts about it coping, despite having to accommodate three times the number of vehicles we have previously. It meant quite a long walk to the arena, but we knew it was 100% reliable.
Last year by March the original assembly field was in prime condition. This year we did a final check three weeks before the event, just before the map proofs were ready to be printed. There was a strong chance the field would never drain sufficiently to take vehicles and 900+ pairs of feet. This was when our brilliant hosts, Sue and Howard Cliff really came into their own. They suggested we use the paddock and agreed to build us the bridge across the ditch leading to it. It proved the best of arenas. The grass didn’t cut up, and it was more compact than the original field which doubtless helped create the splendid atmosphere of the event.
The change of assembly field resulted in a few slight last-minute adjustments to the map, but did not affect the planning of the courses apart from the run-in.
We were able to pull the event off just using Aire members, which made recruitment and organising a good deal simpler than is often the case for a Major event. From what I saw and heard on the day, all the teams did a pretty seamless job.
At Danefield we were delighted to hear so many compliments about the courses and the organisation. The rain held off, although a little more sunshine and a warm wind from the south would have been appreciated. I guess you can’t have everything.
We were pleased to see that both Rob and Lindsey King’s String Course and Maze were well used.
Results from the British Middle Championships 2024.
Aire’s next large-scale events are the Sprint and Urban events in Leeds on 6–7 July 2024.
And the Dales Weekend in the Malham area on 14–15 September 2024.
All aspiring elite athletes should read on!
As per our British team foot O selection policy, all athletes who wish to be considered for selection to the GBR teams for World Cup rounds 1 and 2 must submit an availability form by Friday 3rd May. The form can be found here.
World Cup rounds 1 and 2 take place in Switzerland (24-26 May) and Italy (1-2 June) respectively. These rounds will be the initial selection races for our WOC team, heading to Edinburgh in July.
The selection races used to pick our World Cup teams are Sprint Scotland; good luck to all athletes racing at these high-quality sprint races this coming weekend!
The sun was beating down again on Kuortane as the third race of the World University Championships got underway. In 2016, the British team dominated the Sprint race (the first race of the championships that year). In the Women’s race, the team took home two top-10 results with Charlotte Ward (7th) and Megan Carter-Davies (8th), with Katie Reynolds just a bit further back. In the Men’s race, Kris Jones took the Gold medal on a day where it was 4 Brits in the top-12, with Will Gardner in 6th, Peter Hodkinson =9th and Jonathan Crickmore in 12th. It would, of course, be difficult for the team to reprise the performances of two years ago, with a very different course in front of them.
With virtually no climb on either course, the pace would always be high, which brings with it the risk of runners over-running and going into oxygen debt and making mistakes. Technically, the courses were far more challenging than those of the Mixed Sprint Relay two days ago. Though no sections of intricate technicality, there were wide route choices on nearly every leg, so it would be the runner who spotted the quickest routes every time and could hold their speed over the distance who would take home the gold.
Matthew Elkington was the first British runner out into the terrain and performed admirably. Making no mistakes in the early going he was in touch for a good result, but as the race opened up, just slipped back when the later runner's pace began to show. Sasha Chepelin and Katie Reynolds were next up into the terrain, start at virtually the same time. Just prior to the Brits starting, the leading times had been smashed in both the Men’s and the Women’s races. Henry McNulty of Australia had posted a time 30 seconds quicker than any other runner, whilst Aleksandra Hornik of Poland (who anchored the Polish Mixed Sprint Relay team to a medal two days ago) demolished the leading time, being the first runner to dip under 14 minutes, Sasha (who didn’t race the sprint in 2016) started like a rocket, challenging the early leading splits posted by Anton Johansson (SWE) and Paul Sirum (NOR), but he couldn’t quite match the pace of McNulty over the latter stages. It would be 2nd for Sasha at the finish, but soon news filtered through that he had apparently mispunched. For Katie, it was a tale of a significant difference from her race at the 2016 championships. She blitzed through the early splits and held her form strongly through to the finish to take 5th place as the start list passed its halfway point.
Cecilie Andersen and Nathan Lawson were the next Brits up, again starting at virtually the same time. Cecilie lost some time early on but managed to recoup those loses slightly and lost no further time through to the finish, pulling herself up the standings and backing up her solid run from the Sprint Relay. Nathan started well and was on for a possible top-20, but mistakes began to creep in from the halfway point under the heat of the sun, and he gradually drifted back, to finish just 5 seconds ahead of his clubmate Matt Elkington.
Jonathan Crickmore and Chloe Potter were the next runners for Britain out of the start gate, and it would be Jonny that began to light up the timing screens. Starting quickly, he was challenging the leaders throughout the first half of the race, picking good routes and losing no time. Again, similar to so many others, he would drift back in the second half as the heat sapped the energy from the legs. Chloe backed up her decent results from JWOC last week, and put in another solid technical performance, nailing the route choices throughout her race to finish just a handful of seconds down on Andersen.
It was now that the big names came out to play though, with Weiler of Hungary and Ruch of Switzerland posting positive splits across the board in the women’s race to shift Hornik off the top spot, and would finish just 05. Seconds apart, with Weiler coming out the victor. For the Men it was a Kiwi, Tim Robertson, that would deny the Australians gold, beating everyone at each split point to take another World title to back up his two at Junior level in 2014 and 2015. Norwegian Trond Einer Moen Pedersli, one of the final starters, would split the Oceania duo taking the silver medal and pushing McNulty into 3rd.
Finally, after a nervous couple of hours wait, Sasha Chepelin was reinstated into the competition. It had taken until all the control watchers were back from the terrain for them to confirm that he had indeed visited the controls, and was duly reinstated into 5th place.
Full results are here, and for Great Britain are as follows:
Men: Sasha Chepelin – 5th, Jonny Crickmore – 9th, Nathan Lawson – 35th, Matt Elkington – 37th.
Women: Katie Reynolds – 11th, Cecilie Andersen – 33rd, Chloe Potter – 35th.
Quotes from the Team:
Matt Elkington – The race was hard work. I made a couple of bad route choices and made an error close to the finish, but it was an OK run. Areas of the map were quite confusing, not looking anything as expected, so that added an extra challenge to the speed and the heat.
The Long Distance:
It’s back to the forests tomorrow for the final individual discipline, the Long Distance. This is the one that all the athletes want to win, and the one with the most prestige associated with it. The terrain looks like it will be similar to the Middle Distance, so if the temperatures remain hot, it will be a very long and tough day out in the forests for many runners. The terrain for the Middle was rougher underfoot than many expected, though some described it as lovely, so it could all be down to the mentality that the runners take into the events that could give them a result.
Scholes Mill, Old Coach Road, Tansley, Matlock, DE4 5FY
Tel: 01629 583037, Email: info@britishorienteering.org.uk
Registered in England & Wales No:1606472