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World Ranking Event details updated
We've put up more details about the SOL and World Ranking Event that we are hosting this March - please see the separate link on the right. You'll also find details there about the middle-distance event at Touch on the day before the big event. It'll be great!
Club Champs
It was a good day to have an early run; those with late runs suffered miserable weather up on the moor, on Will's tough courses. But through it all, congratulations to our new club champions.
Our mens and womens champions are James Tullie and Hazel Dean. In the veteran classes, Steve Barrett and Rona Molloy took the honours.
In the new class of Super-Vet, Elizabeth Sinclair took the honour for the laides.
Frances Brown ran up a course (she did the blue), and is our Senior Girls Champion. The Stansfield family cleaned up in the Junior department, with Clare being our Junior Girls Champion, and Daniel the Junior Boys Champion.
Full Results and Routegadget on our results pages.
Compass Sport Trophy
Harvester champions.....11-person relay champions.......and now Compass Sport Trophy champions once again!
On fast high-intensity courses at Fineshade Woods somewhere on the edge of Northamptonshire/Lincolnshire, the intrepid-but-depleted FVO team did us all proud and brought the Compass Sport Trophy back to Scotland once more.
This year we had some notable absentees and we knew we could only win with excellent performances all round and some key team members producing their very best. And that was what we got!
Course wins for Fiona Berrow, Jamie Stevenson and Maureen Brown set us up - Maureen with a great run to finish seconds ahead of the current W60 British Champion and in her own words 'made no mistakes and couldn't have gone round any faster'.
Great support came with Craig Thomson (still an M16 so giving two years to others) completing an FVO 1-2 on the M/W18 course and Frances Brown zooming round for second on the M/W14 course.
And packing in close behind them were other top 5 finishes for Roger Goddard, Beccy Osborn, Gary Longhurst and Tori Longhurst, with all our remaining scorers keeping the pressure up fantastically by packing inside the top 10 on their course - Kyle Heron, Ross McLennan, Trevor Hoey and Fiona Hendrie.
Well done to them and to all the rest of our team - it is a measure of how well everyone ran in pushing down the points of runners from other clubs that several of the members of our team that I haven't mentioned would have been strong points scorers in every single other team in the final!
Another great triumph for FVO in what has been a wonderfully successful year - looking forward to a great turnout at the Dinner Dance on 21 November so we can all celebrate together!
SOSOL
FVO is organising a SOSOL at Barr Wood on 8th November
11 Person Relay
Team Prudential Forth Valley won a superb victory in the 11 Person Relay at Faskally. By the end of fourth leg, Prudential Forth Valley had gained a narrow advantage. Jamie Stevenson went out on the last leg for FVO, leading by just under a minute from EUOC's Ali McLeod. There were fears that this might not be enough of a cushion against a very strong orienteer, but Jamie had an excellent run. Jamie came sprinting to the final control with Ali on his shoulder. Jamie crucially managed to be the first to get the final punch, and then sprinted across the finishing line to win the trophy for FVO by the narrowest of margins.
The complete team
- Leg 1 - Will (Tartan)
- Leg 2 - Jon (Orange), Martin (Light Green), Ross (Green)
- Leg 3 - Fraser (Orange), Kyle (Light Green), Steve N (Green)
- Leg 4 - Jason (Orange), Roger (Light Green), James T (Green)
- Leg 5 - Jamie S (Tartan)
Junior Home Internationals
Jamie Stevenson achieved the silver medal position in last weekend's Junior Home Internationals in Wales.
Jamie, representing Scotland, had one of the best runs of his season at the weekend. Running in a strong M18 field he managed to hold off some very strong competition and beat 2 Junior World Champs team members to come 2nd behind European Youth Sprint champion Kristian Jones. The event took place on the complex sand dunes of Broughton Burrows, Anglesey.
Jamie is a 1st year in this class so this result bodes well for an exceptional season in 2010!
Also representing Scotland at the event were Frances Brown, Stuart Thomson and Craig Thomson
Scotland tied with England in the individual results, but dropped behind England in the Relays to end in a strong second place, well ahead of Wales and Ireland
What a Cracking Six Day
Congratulations to Gareth on leading FVO and Tay in organising what is now being acknowledged as a s superb "Six Day". From threads on Nopesport, comments on Blogs and to floods of emails, the complements have just poured in
- What a cracking week's orienteering!'
- probably the best Scottish 6 Days event I’ve been to'
Well done to all involved
FVO Successes at the Six Days
It was also great to see the FVO junior girls everywhere at the prizegiving (and I don't just mean giving out the prizes!) - Grace Molloy, Emily Nicholson, Laura Hendrie and Rachel Hendrie all finished on the podium for their class. Well done to them and also to the other FVO members who made the top three - Steve Nicholson, Beccy Osborn, Martin Dean and Roger Goddard (Roger sharing the win on M35S with his brother-in-law!).
Team Prudential Forth Valley at the Rat Race
The highly successful team finished with a brilliant 5th place at the Edinburgh Rat Race. Picture on the right courtesy of Janine
JAMIE STEVENSON TROPHY 2009
The sun shone at Pitmedden Forest for this year's annual junior club competition. 130 juniors from all parts of Scotland took part, including large contingents from INVOC (26) and MAROC (36) who arrived in coaches.
The competition consists of 5 courses – Yellow boys, Yellow girls, Orange, Light Green and Green. Boys and girls score separately giving 8 classes in total. Scoring is similar to the Compass Sport cup with the winner of each class scoring 100 points, with 99 for second, 98 for third and so on. The top 6 scores in each club are then added together.
FVO were represented by 17 juniors (the 3rd largest club team). We have won this competition in the past on 2 occasions and have been runners-up 3 times. However, this year we were missing a few of our older juniors for various reasons. The FVO team were young and some of them lacked experience of running in major events, with 11 running the Yellow courses and 4 the Orange. The courses were planned to guidelines, but were made more challenging by the number of small paths, some made by mountain bikes and some quite indistinct. Some of the longer course runners also had problems with cows! In spite of this, there were some great individual results (see below) and when the team results were announced in reverse order we were all thrilled that FVO had come home in second place. The competition was won by MAROC who in addition to their presence in large numbers, also had 6 members of the Scottish Junior Squad in their team.
Counting team members for FVO were:
- Alasdair Kitching (2nd ,Yellow boys)
- Calum Kitching (4th, Yellow boys)
- Rachel Hendrie (2nd Yellow girls)
- Grace Molloy (4th Yellow girls)
- Laura Hendrie (2nd Orange)
- Jamie Stevenson (3rd Green)
Final results:
- MAROC 596 pts
- FVO 589
- INVOC 583
Full results can be found at: here
Nerve-wracking win for Team Prudential Forth Valley at the Harvester
At 7.05am on 21 June, just over eight hours after the start, Ross McLennan came flying down the hill from the final control and was joined on the run-in by the rest of our team - to cross the finish line at Merthyr Common in south Wales together and take the Harvester Trophy title for Team Prudential Forth Valley.
The event was held on an area of extreme technical difficulty, with a plethora of large limestone depressions scattered across an often vague hillside with virtually no line features - challenging enough in the day let alone at night.
The competition was worthy of the area with Prudential Forth Valley and South Yorkshire head to head from the end of leg two onwards, first one team then the other taking the lead, sometimes by as much as five minutes, but always finding themselves close together at the changeover and within 30 seconds at the end of legs four, five and six.
On the seventh and final leg of 13km, Ross had the lead at the first spectator control but a miss on the next loop saw the two teams together again at the second spectator control just five minutes for the future. However he powered away up the hill to pull out a small gap on South Yorkshire and to our delight and relief soon reappeared back in sight at the final control with a 30 second cushion to take the win.
This was FVO's first ever win at the Harvester after many years of trying - congratulations to the team of Fraser Purves, Steve Barrett, Marcus Pinker, Jason Inman, Roger Goddard, Jon Cross and Ross McLennan - they definitely earned their early morning glass of champagne!
Junior Selections
Congratulations to the three FVO juniors who gained selection for the main international competitions and the summer training tours:
- Frances Brown - tour to Lagganlia
- Jamie Stevenson - tour to Halden, and team for European Youth Champs in Serbia
- Abi Longhurst - tour to Halden and European Youth Champs reserve
Well done to all three of them - just reward for a great year's training and racing so far.
Scottish Champs
Congratulations to all our FVO people who came away from this weekend's Scottish Championships with trophies and medals!
In the individual championships then FVO's Scottish Champions were Roger Goddard in M35L, Beccy Osborn in W35L, Steve Nicholson in M40L and Gareth Bryan-Jones in M60L (running up an age class!). There were many other silver and bronze medals, including a clean sweep of the medals on M35L, and top FVO runners on the elite courses were Ross McLennan in 8th on M21E and Becky Carlyle in 4th on W21E.
In the relay our men's Team Prudential Forth Valley of Ross McLennan, Steve Nicholson and Roger Goddard was in the fight for the medals all through the race and ended up in 4th place, with our women's Team Prudential Forth Valleyt of Hazel Dean, Kirsty Bryan-Jones and Becky Carlyle overcoming a minor 'where's my e-card' loss of ten minutes to take excellent silver medals. In the junior relay our leading team of Grace Molloy, Daniel Stansfield and Frances Brown finished a good seventh, with Daniel repeating his JK relay performance by running fastest on his leg.
Pride of place on relay day went to our handicap teams - Louise Longhurst was first back on leg one in the handicap race, running for our Handicap 18 team, only for the Handicap 9 team of Martin Dean, Brian Bullen and Steve Barrett to take the lead on leg two and hold that lead to take victory at the finish. They are clearly an ever-youthful team as for some reason they were given the junior relay trophy in error at the prizegiving!
Six Day Mountain Biking
On the "rest day" at the Six Day, why not try out Janine's mountain biking event. Entries at Fabian 4, though if you are not already a member you will have to join the Trail Cyclist Association first (its FREE)
JK Success
Great news from the JK in Northumberland this week - not just that the sun shone, but also that FVO people were in the prizes once again!
Individual highlight of the weekend must be the individual win for Gareth Bryan-Jones in M65L, where only one person could get within eight minutes of Gareth on the second day as he stormed through to win!
Relay day saw another highlight as the FVO Team Prudential Men120+ team took on perennial champions and favourites South Yorkshire - and ran a faster time than their rivals on each of the three legs to record a clear victory! Great work by Roger Goddard saw the team take a narrow lead on leg one, Martin Dean ran the fastest time for leg two to extend the lead, and Jason Inman sped round leg three to complete the win - congratulations!
In the individual races, as well as Gareth's win, FVO's other medallists were Roger Goddard and Jason Inman with 2nd and 3rd in M35L and Steve Barrett with 2nd in M45L - hard earned medals on long tough courses,
In addition there were a number of very near misses for the podium. Martin Dean in M50L, Rona Molloy in W40L, Beccy Osborn in W35L (Beccy also took FVO's only medal at Friday's sprint race, with bronze in W35) and Frances Brown in W14A were all fourth and Daniel Stansfield in M12A was 5th. There was also a first JK win for Grace Molloy in W10B, plus other FVO prizewinners with Victoria Longhurst winning W20L, Becky Carlyle W21L, and Gary Longhurst 2nd in M50S.
Relay day saw many other fine runs but no other medals although the fifth-placed M165+ team of Gareth, Brian Bullen and Dave Coustick came within tantalising seconds of third place. Our leading Men's Open team finished in 11th place, hampered by injury striking Will Hensman on last leg when he was lying in an excellent 6th place. This allowed our Women's Open team to finish higher than the men, congratulations to them on their 9th place!
And it was great also to see FVO field a team in the mini-relay for the first time for a few years - the team of Grace Molloy, Clare Stansfield and Daniel Stansfield ran really well and finished well up the field - Daniel on the final leg came flying through the field to 7th place with the fastest leg time of the day by over a minute, a brilliant effort by him.
British Age Class Sprint Championships
Results are now available - take a look at the Results page! You'll also find links to WinSplits there. RouteGadget to follow (honest!)
FVO wins the Scottish heat of the CompassSport Trophy competition
Congratulations to everyone who turned out for FVO on Sunday and helped us through to yet another Compass Sport Trophy Final - a great effort!
It was particularly noticeable how the junior courses contributed to our score on Sunday. On the Light Green it was Jack Barrett and Morven Dean (good to see Jack back running and winning, and great work by Morven to score over 90 points on a course that is usually dominated by the M16s and M18s). Meanwhile on the Orange our point scorers were Frances Brown in second building on her strong start to the season, and M12 Daniel Stansfield scoring Compass Sport Trophy points for FVO for the first time and beating all the other M12s and M14s.
Welcome also to new member Becky Carlyle who marked her first CST run for FVO with second in the women's race. Everyone contributed strongly - it was very noticeable how many people over and above the 13 counters scored a high number of points and forced down the scores of runners from other clubs - this can be vital so well done and thank you to everyone!
New Club Tops
FVO have a new club top which is laser printed with our own unique design and incorporates the colours and style of our current top. It will be produced in a coolmax polyester fabric, with a zip neck.
Tops are available in unisex sizes xxs, xs, s, m, l, xl and xxl (which roughly translates to chest sizes 32”, 35”, 38”, 40”, 42”, 44” and 46”). The tops are made of stretch fabric and designed to be worn “fitted” so if you prefer a more “roomy” fit you may wish to buy a larger size. If you would like the fit to be similar to the current FVO Trimtex top I would suggest buying one size larger.
If you would like to order a top, please contact Louise Longhurst by Friday 23rd January
2008 Club Champions
Will Hensman and Janine Inman flew around Barr Wood to record clear victories in the Senior Mens and Womens club champs on November 22nd. It was a crisp morning, so running fast certainly helped you to keep warm! Steve Barratt planned some excellent courses to test everyone's concentration; few had entirely clean runs.
Steve Nicholson also posted a clear win in the Veteran Mens' race, but the Veteran Ladies' competition was a much closer affair; Rona Molloy and Cathy Tilbrook had to share the victory after recording exactly the same time! Frances Brown won the Senior Girls; Junior Girls and Junior Boys champs were Morvern Dean and Daniel Stansfield respectively. Congratulations to all! And thanks to Steve for such enjoyable and challenging courses.
Results here.
Compass Sport - Winners
In a very close final, FVO came out winners at the Compass Sport Trophy final at Sutton Park to retain our title. Some great runs by FVO members across all the courses were just enough for FVO to beat SARUM into second place by just 10 points.
Particular mention to Abi Longhurst, Steve Barrett, Gareth Bryan-Jones and Stuart Thomson for their excellent runs to be the winners of their courses, and there were also fine top three places for Marcus Pinker, Craig Thomson and Jamie Stevenson (Stuart and Jamie completing an FVO 1-2 whitewash on the U18 course).
Other scoring runners for FVO were Jason Inman, Jon Cross, Gary Longhurst, Ted Finch, Janine Inman and Frances Brown - but that is only part of the story, it is very much a competition for the whole team and everyone present plays their part in affecting the scores of the other clubs - so many thanks and congratulations to everyone who ran for us for their contribution to our success!
