Sprint Stars Sparkle
Four medals at the British Sprint Championships in East Anglia, two of them golds, brought to a fantastic end the major championship season for Forth Valley Orienteers, with new record hauls of medals across the board.
The weekend opened wih a well-worked Bronze medal for the U16 team in the Mixed Sprint Relay, as they contended well in the race around RAF Honington.
Lucas Baikie was quick out of the traps, and brought the team back from the first leg with a six second (15.28) lead over eventual winners SYO. Esme Finch still has three years left at this level, and kept the team in the hunt with a 17.41 on the middle leg.
Fraser Cheyne was set the task of a 90 second catch on the closer to get back into the medals, and he pulled it off magnificently, with the 2nd quickest time (15.58) to bring the team home in 49.07 and a comfy three minute gap over 4th.
The final event of a packed 15 race calendar which has brought more than 200 major medals for 64 different athletes was the Sprint championship, and there were three more medals for local athletes. No flies on Andy Llewellyn, who was once again slowest in qualifying in M35 and once again stormed through the field to take victory in 17.31. Lucas Baikie was in for his Sprint debut, and is away with a title at the first time of asking, as he was five seconds (19.33) clear of the field in M14A.
In M80, Dave Coustick equalled his best-ever result with the Bronze (24.17) and there was a new PB for Anthony Barrable, who was 4th in the same class (27.17).
The GB team was missing from the action, as they were on duty at the European Championships in Belgium, and the highlight performance was a battling 14th place for Grace Molloy in the Sprint, which was 11 places higher than her world ranking, and nine better than her pre-race seeding
Rain showers greeted the earlier starters, and the underfoot conditions were tough for hard running, but Grace was best through her splits of those in the race, and came home in 14.39 for a lead at that point of 20 seconds. The top athletes at the head of the race quickly reduced this, and Grace ended up 10 seconds off the podium at the end,