British Orienteering and SportsShoes band together to host inaugural Quid Games event

Together with Ben Mounsey (SportsShoes) Quid Games was born, of which, the inaugural event ‘The Dark Edition’, was held on Saturday 18^th January at the prestigious and sprawling Broughton Hall estate which covers East Lancashire and North Yorkshire.

The race started and finished in our event village, with the opportunity for all entrants to test the latest Silva headtorches, Rab apparel, SCARPA footwear and products from OTE. We also had some HUGE prizes on offer, including a total of £700 SportsShoes vouchers, the latest range of Silva head torches, plus ££££'s of Rab apparel, SCARPA footwear and OTE Sports Nutrition.

The Concept

A race with equal parts of thrill, strategy, and mystery, The Dark Edition challenged athletes to think on their feet and outpace the competition—all whilst navigating the stunning Broughton Hall Estate through an unpredictable series of checkpoints and surprises.

With just 60 minutes on the clock, 10 secret checkpoints to find and all loaded with incredible prizes from our sponsors. Each control was worth 10 points, with a maximum score of 100 points. As this was a score event, checkpoints could be visited in any order, so it meant planning your race strategy the moment you picked up a map.

It wasn't just about crossing the finish line—it was about how you played the game.

This race was cleverly designed for athletes of every age and ability, but it was also the perfect chance to test your navigation skills and race against some of the very best orienteers, road, trail and mountain runners in the country.

We invited some of the UK's elite athletes from every discipline, plus one very special guest - Olympian Alistair Brownlee!ㅤ

The Race

After a 'perfectly planned' frantic and chaotic start, where our runners didn’t even have a map to begin with, our runners had to first navigate their way to find the maps which were being lit, 500m away by powerful SILVA headtorches! Checkpoints were loaded with prizes on a first come first served basis, and were strategically placed to force the runners into some quick decision making -

Aim for the overall win (and complete the checkpoints in the shortest logical order) and grab the biggest prize pot or opt to head straight to a particular checkpoint to try and grab individual prizes before anyone else!

In the men's race, it was GB orienteer and HOKA athlete Kris Jones, who really showed his class, blowing away his nearest rivals towards the end of the race and claiming 1st place overall in a mind-boggling time of 25:53!

Young orienteer Euan Tryner was in hot pursuit, narrowly beating the experienced Jonathan Crickmore by 3 seconds to claim 2nd place on the podium. The pair running 26:05 and 26:08 respectively.

The elder statesmen of the Leeds City A.C Harriers, Graham Rush, claimed the win in the veteran class, finishing in 5th place overall in a time of 26:13. He was just 5 seconds quicker than Olympian Alistair Brownlee, with less than a minute separating the top 9 men!

The women's race was just as exciting to watch.

It was difficult to choose a pre-race favourite from the strong field but in the end, the star of the show was GB orienteer Niamh Hunter, winning in an incredible time of 31:03 and finished in 17th place overall!

Joining her on the podium was New Zealand orienteer, Laura Robertson in 31:15 and Fiona Bunn, a household name in British Orienteering, just 14 seconds behind in 31:29.

Thankfully (for the sport) the orienteers mostly came out on top, allowing us to showcase how elite our athletes are, with many of our GB athletes taking away prizes from the range of sponsors at the event. However, more crucial than the prizes on offer, was the opportunity to introduce the sport to many new people from the trail and fell running world, many of them influential ambassadors in their own fields. Social media stats and talk about the sport following the event show this has been a resounding success. You can see a short reel of the event here.

Kay Hawke – Partnership Manager

‘We wanted to break from the ordinary with the Quid Games event and not only throw together the best of the best into a simplified orienteering environment but also create an event where everybody could enjoy the festival feel and go home talking about afterwards! We welcomed sponsors, Silva, Scarpa, Rab and OTE Nutrition to be part of the event village offering demo kit for people to try at the event and free giveaways alongside fire pits, a pizza van and live commentary from the experienced Ben Mounsey. Not only were SportsShoes instrumental in introducing the sponsors, providing equipment, advice, and support to the event, as well as generous sponsorship of their own, they provided accommodation and supplies for our GB athletes to attend, and are wholeheartedly committed to putting the sport on the map. The athlete accommodation was kitted out with sponsor giveaways and individual  social media content was captured here before the event for further use by British Orienteering in future promotional material such as team announcements for example. This all began with just an idea by myself and Ben to ‘do something different’, and it resulted in something even better than we hoped, we’re already analysing what we can do further, and better to put the sport at the forefront of the trail and adventure worlds minds. The support of all the sponsors and SportsShoes enabled us to take a leap into the unknown and the learnings and positive reactions from the event will help the sport, our clubs and our members on a much wider scale than just this event. Plans are already afoot for Quid Games Part 2 in late Spring, with a whole new format, but as always – you can expect the unexpected!’.

You can see further content, results and a summary of the event here. Or visit the Quid Games Instagram account.

Image credits: Nathan Phua and Jamie Rutherford.