Local Heroes
Despite not recording a finish time, two local orienteers were acclaimed as heroes as they aborted their runs in horrendous weather, while in a leading position, to assist a seriously-injured competitor at the Original Mountain Marathon in Galloway.
The 57th OMM took place to the backdrop of Storm Austen, with more than a thousand competitors taking to the Galloway Hills in search of red and white flags. Paul and James Hammond were progressing well on the Medium Score course, and had collected 100 points in 90 minutes to hold a provisional course lead at the one-third point.
However, any aspirations of glory were shelved, as they encountered a fellow-athlete on the most-exposed part of the course who had fallen off a crag and broken his leg badly. While another runner summoned the mountain rescue team, Paul and James spent more than four hours with the casualty, sheltering him from the rapidly-deteriorating weather and keeping him warm, and by the time the rescue team had appeared to extract the injured man, the course had closed and there was no more opportunity to add to their scores.
As the storm continued overnight, organisers were forced to alter the plan for the second day, and elected to call the results after the first day of racing, walking the remaining competitors out to the finish without timing them. Three local pairs were amongst the medals from the first day, and Chris and Scarlett Kelly won the Short course in a time of 3:03:50. Clare Stansfield and Tom Lines were 2nd on the Medium course, in 5:21:16 and on the Medium Score course, Ben Stansfield and Patrick Bartlett were 3rd, with 520 points in 5:53:56.
The Scottish Score Championship took place in Morayshire, and there were nine local athletes amongst the medals, including five class winners. Rob Truswell won M45 with 330 points in 59.11, and Scott Baikie topped M50 (370 in 59.01). There's a double in the over 55 classes, with Mark Wood (340 in 61.55) and Rona Molloy (330 in 60.40) leading their divisions, and Hazel Dean added another Score title to her resume, in W60 (290 in 62.56).
There were silver medals for Ethan Baikie (M12, 10 in 54.37), Sam Osborne (M18, 340 in 52.47) and Hanna Brindley (W18, 250 in 60.34) while in M16, Lucas Baikie came away with bronze (370 in 54.43.