Strong to the End
A busy weekend of orienteering saw FVO athletes feature in five different races, with some top performances in a variety of race formats
Scarlett Kelly finished 18 places higher than her pre-race seeding with a strong 12th finish in the World Ranking middle race at Eggerslack in the Lake District. With no prior world ranking to show, Scarlett was dumped back in 30th place on the start list, but showed good form on a hilly course to come back in 46.10 for a provisional lead before the heavy hitters pushed her out of the top 10. Chris Smithard was 7th in the Men's WRE (42.36) and James Hammond was 11th (44.58).
Chris had his time in the spotlight on the first day as he was a fine 7th (87.00) in the Lakeland Warrior long race at Simpson Ground, 4 1/2 minutes off the front of a mass start one-man relay.
Scarlett made a big step up in distance, with the W21 course standing at 9.3km, but she dug in well on the longer trip to come back as the 10th woman in 103.44, as the only one of the seven W16s in the field to get round successfully.
The winter training camp in Strathspey concluded with guest appearances at the BASOC club championships in Nethy Bridge, and FVO's athletes dominated proceedings on a Score course.
Alasdair McLeod was almost perfect on the day, nabbing 35 controls and was just one second over time, for a big win. Yotam Bertrand managed six less controls, in tough terrain, but got back in 59.42 for 2nd place. Amongst the women, the top three on the course were all from FVO, as Alice McDaid managed 24 in 59.34 for the win, ahead of Angela Mudge, who also had 24 controls, but was 16 seconds over time, and Bryony McLeod, who was 90 seconds quicker but had one less control on her card.
The southern half of the terrain was repurposed for a junior event, with no road crossings, and the top four on the course all completed a full set of 23 controls, with Lucas Baikie taking the win in a superb 44.20. Sean Truswell was well in contention, and was 2nd in 50.34, ahead of both Fraser Cheyne (57.38) and James Edward (61.07).
Rachel Kirkland was most impressive in the 25th Glasgow Parks Championship, as she won all three stages, at Tollcross (10.19), Alexandra Park (9.09) and Drumpellier (24.16), by a composite margin of nearly 17 minutes for a big win in Women's Vet.
Ben Stansfield was 3rd (9.43) at Tollcross, but silver medals (8.10 and 19.41) in the other two stages helped him to overall 2nd in Men's SuperVet, while Josie Stansfield improved round on round, and 2nd places at both Alexandra Park (11.49) and Drumpellier (25.43) put her in the silver medal berth in Women's SuperVet.
Laura and Rachel Hendrie were in Portugal at the final Euro City Race of the year in Faro, and there was nothing to choose between them, with Rachel 5th (26.46) in the Middle race, and Laura 21 seconds back in 6th, while in the City Race, Rachel was 7th (52.22) and Laura 8th (55.13).
The final action of the weekend was back in Glasgow, as Steve Feltbower won the inaugural Auchengillan Winter Trail Championship, in a time of 57.52