England Wins Home International
England won the Veteran Home International in Ireland to tie up the international series with one event to go, but there were eight FVO athletes in the hunt.
The W60 race had both Scotland competitors from FVO with Hazel Dean taking the win in 42.44 and Alison Cunningham 4th in 55.41. Scotland also had a pair of FVO athletes in W50, where Beccy Osborn was an excellent 2nd (58.02) and Rachel Kirkland was 4th (60.18).
Kirsty Bryan-Jones is also a W50 (and pretty soon won't be any more) but she took one for the team today by running up as a W45, and was 4th (62.28) in her first orienteering event since last year's S6D.
On the other side of the coin, almost half of the field in M50 is from FVO and Jason Inman snapped up the victory in 52.45 in his last year in the class. Roger Goddard is in his first year as an M50, and was 5th (55.22), ahead of Marcus Pinker (56.55) who was in the Ireland team.
England did the needful in the relay, as their teams were 1st and 3rd in both races, but the FVO athletes in the field all played their part, with two in the silver medal winning teams, and two with the quickest split on their leg.
Roger Goddard was sent out with a narrow 30 second lead in the MWM race, but was reeled in as his team finished 2nd (40.51 for the leg). Hazel Dean (5th in 37.17) and Beccy Osborn (10th in 40.44) were on the middle leg for MWM teams, while Marcus Pinker was on closing duty for an Ireland outfit and was 10th on his leg (41.16).
In the WMW version, there are two FVO athletes with the quickest split for their leg. Alison Cunningham was quickest on the opener (26.33) as she helped her team into 2nd place, just 17 seconds off the front, while Jason Inman had the fastest time on the middle leg (30.52), but his team was well back at that stage.
Kirsty Bryan-Jones was also on Jason's team, and was 10th (47.04) while Rachel Kirkland had the same leg as Kirsty, and was 8th (46.31).