Park Life
Forth Valley Orienteers brought their 2025 season to a close with eight medals, including two champion performances, at the 26th Glasgow Parks Championship.
The STAG-promoted event is always a highlight of the late season calendar, with races this year at Sighthill and Dawsholm, followed by a chasing start finale at Kelvingrove.
Fraser Cheyne made an early step to the Men's Open division, and a 2nd (17.00) at Dawsholm was followed by an audacious win in the final race (21.05) to bring him the overall silver medal. He wasn't the youngest Open competitor on the day, and a mention in passing for Esme Finch, who was 4th in Women's Open despite bring five years under-age.
Rob Truswell and Rachel Kirkland were on the podium in each of their races, with Rob collecting a third in the middle race, bookended by a pair of 2nds, and Rachel winning the Dawsholm leg, backed up by 2nds in the other races, and both won the silver in the Veteran classes.
Four medals in SuperVet, where Alison Cunningham won only one of her three races. at Sighthill, but with a sufficient lead over Rona Molloy, who won the other two races, to take the class win, with Rona 2nd overall. Jon Cross had the silver in SuperVet Men, one place ahead of Mark Wood.
The second club win of the day was on the UltraVet course, where Gary Longhurst came through strongly in the final race for an overall winning margin of just six seconds.
The junior team was the dominant force the day before at AYROC's season-closer at Glen Gaw, near Dalmellington, where they won eight of the nine available medals, lacking the ninth only because they had only two competitors on the course.
Fraser Cheyne held it together in the back third of the Green course to scope out a 64 second (42.33) win over Lucas Baikie, who led through the first ten controls. Rob Truswell was 3rd in 56.41, and Scott Baikie and Jack Cheyne assisted for five FVO in the top six.
Hannah Inman is fully back in the groove, and a lead of nearly 13 minutes on the Light Green course (31.39) was more than enough for a sparkling win. Sean Truswell gained 17 seconds over the last two legs to come home in 44.26, leaving Esme Finch (44.41) with the day's bronze medal.
And on Orange, Luc Darvill was right out in front for a time of 28.57 and a lead of over 11 minutes ahead of Susan Baikie in 2nd.