Event Spotlight: STAG City Race Weekend 2024

Three days packed with exciting races spanning both indoor and outdoor venue locations – how did you make the decisions on the venues?

The idea of a multi-day event really came from the desire to put something on that would attract both orienteering tourists and elite teams. So the venues were selected to give the best similarity to Edinburgh for Elites training for WOC, but also show off all Glasgow has to offer. We also wanted a fun event to kick off the weekend and allow a bit of socialising but also close to the transportation hubs so it was easy to get to. So we were lucky to have our connections at Glasgow Caledonian University to help us go back to that unique indoor venue. 

Were there any relationships with key stakeholders that you had to manage throughout the planning process?

The STAG members & friends of STAG were the key relationships that were required to put on this weekend. Without all the support from the club and friends this large of an undertaking from STAG would have been impossible. So we thank everyone immensely for the help! The other key stakeholders were Glasgow City Council, which without the support from Councillor Kevin Lalley we would have struggled a lot for event centre areas and access. Always important to have the council understanding what we’re trying to achieve! We also had two universities we need to have access approved for so we are grateful for the orienteering lectures support with this and enabling early communication. And lastly on Sunday we had the challenge of our partner club Shettleston Harriers putting on a major 10km race in Glasgow green where we were finishing. So communication between the clubs to avoid athlete clashes were key! And to make planning even harder we late on found out about an orange march taking place in the city centre. Thankfully all way well and no one interfered with each other. 

How many entries did you manage to get for the event?

We got 260+ entries over the three days. 148 runners took on the indoor on Friday, we had 64 sprint relay runners, 161 runners ran the sprint to see how they could compare to the elites, and 261 runners took on the streets of Glasgow in the Sundays urban event. 

How did each day unfold at the event? 

Friday started us off indoors, on arguably one of the nicest evenings we had in a while which is just typical! But everyone seemed to have made their way to the venue fine and enjoyed this different challenge. Many spent a bit of time before they started studying the old map that was on display and even then there was a lot of walking out of the start trying to make sense of it all! The short course results really shows how inclusive the sport is with the age range of competitors being W12 to M85. This event however was just a bit of fun and the warm up for the weekend. 

Saturday consisted of two events which were dubbed the “Double Deer” day. This was due to Graeme Ackland from Sprintelope (another deer) teaming up with the STAG crew. Graeme planned the sprint relay and sprint for us giving teams and runners a taste of how this WOC planner thinks. But all good planners need a controller, this is where Dave Robertson from CLYDE kindly stepped in to support our efforts. Then with our every own Rudi Paul as mapper we had our self the start of a team! Ross White took on day organiser and had this to say about the day “The Double Deer Relay and Sprint was a challenging event to organise mainly due to the remote starts and changeover areas and being located in this city. I want to say a massive thanks to the fantastic team of volunteers on the day as without them, this event would not have been possible or gone as smoothly as it did. I was so happy STAG was able to host a great and memorable event using quality urban orienteering terrain within Glasgow. We had great feedback from those who took part which is a great boost for everyone who helped to make it happen. Thank-you.”

Due to the busy road that runs through the middle of the map this gave the team a big challenge! The relay legs 1 & 2 took in the north side and then a unique handover was used, where the runners didn’t actually physically hand off but organisers set the leg 3 off once the leg 2 punched the last control. This allowed people to cross safely between their legs and use the best areas of the map! Unfortunately the arena was chosen to be in Kelvingrove Park, due to the juniors course restrictions so the buzz of the finish wasn’t there but we believed was worth it for some challenging courses. The sprint event then had a twist of being again in two sections, so the team decided a time cap of a 20min break between sections to cross the road and catch one’s breath was reasonable. Everyone seemed to enjoy the event so these decisions seem to have been good. 

Sunday was the Main Event, the reason the weekend was out on, the Euro City Race. STAG was asked if we would put on an event to be part of the series, which much to Terry’s dismay we excitingly accepted so we could help be part of the lead up to WOC 2024. We had three course planners, two controllers, one mapper, and 60+ volunteers to make it happen.

Controller's Comments - Blair Young, TINTO.

What a fantastic end to a great three days of orienteering in a hot and sunny Glasgow! My job was made very easy by our fantastic STAG team who once again put on a series of top quality orienteering events that catered well for runners of all standards.

Our planners did a great job identifying and using the best of the available area and the constraints of: gaining access permissions, the potential of an Orange Walk and the large Shettleston Hariers 10k race which prevented more use of the Glasgow Green area. I would also like to take the opportunity to thank Kenny for his support with the controlling duties. I know Glasgow quite well but I was still able to discover areas new to me and enjoyed seeing more of the City’s architectural grandeur , all be it that some buildings are in need of restoration! Hopefully our many visitors were able to leave the “dear Green place” with pleasant memories.

Planner's Comments - Fredrik Nordvall Forsberg & Iain Cattermole, STAG.

Thanks to everyone for coming along and to the huge support from the volunteers to help run the event so smoothly. From the point of view of the planning team, thanks especially to all control guards, who made us less nervous about controls disappearing on the day, and to Ross and Rudi for helping put out the controls in the morning, meaning we only had to start hanging them at 7am! Also thanks to Terry for preparing all of the kit in advance, and again to Rudi for the excellent new map of the area.

We had the perfect weather for the weekend and it was a lovely day marshalling and photographing the race. We had a welcome surprise this morning that the Orange Walk planned to cross the course was cancelled, simplifying the job for our marshalls on High Street. A less pleasant surprise was finding the low gates to the City of Glasgow College car park closed this morning, something they have never been during our site visits previous weekends or evenings. A marshal was hastily put to work telling runners it was okay to cross, and we hope this didn't affect anyone's route choices.

It was great to hear many positive comments about the course. We tried to give everyone a run in the most technical areas of the University of Strathclyde campus and the Drygate and Wellpark housing schemes, with a more runnable second half of the courses through Calton, although we hope the lanes and footpaths there still presented some navigational challenges. We expected that the Men Open winning time would be faster than Euro City Race regulations recommend, and we’re not disappointed, but we didn't want to add on extra running for the sake of just making the courses longer — we hope you all enjoyed.

Results

The events were not combined in terms of results so we had multiple winners! 

For the sprint 2x2 person relay the French National team took the tops spots, showing us all how it’s done. For the sprint our winners were: 

WYJ - Emma Daley ESOC 

MJ - Luke Bennett DFOK

WJ - Rebecca Daley ESOC

MO - Mark Burley MDOC

WO - Heidi Ross ESOC 

Full Results 

Friday 

Saturday Relay

Saturday Sprint 

Sunday

Was there any interest from individuals not participating in the event? Were there any opportunities to entice newcomers to the sport, and if so was there information on hand for them to learn more about orienteering?

We had a number of people ask on the Saturday what the event was around the university campus and Kelvingrove park. All the volunteers were prepared to describe what was going on, but being a small club we did not take on any “on the day” opportunities. We did have our website clearly written on the Pink T-shirts though and pointed people there for more information. 

You managed to secure sponsors at the event, can you tell us more about how this came to be and how/if they supported you with the event?

We were very lucky to have our primary sponsor EXCEED footwear who supplied all the lovely Pink T-shirts that the volunteers wore and were also given as prizes for the weekend. This partnership came from the owners being family members of our honorary president Terry O’Brien BEM. 

Tunnock’s is a local business to the club so we approached them in the hopes of some support to give each participant a Scottish treat. They kindly donated the Caramel wafer biscuits which were handed out at the finish. 

YourOMaps also were very supportive of the event! Worked with us to ensure top quality maps and even gave us a discount in printing when agreed to put the order in with a good notice period. 

We reached out to other companies as well, but sometimes you just don’t hear back and such as life. But my take away would be brainstorm early on (soon as the date is set!) and start reaching out with a clear message of what you’re looking for and what you can offer in return. 

We recently announced that STAG had won the Respect the Environment Award 2023. One of the initiatives that you have developed as a club is championing low carbon travel, such as travelling by minibus/bike or car sharing. Do you know if many of your members used this in order to get to the event this year?

We were very proud and surprised to win the Respect the Environment Award, and are doing our best to continue these efforts. Apart from Terry’s car which was full to the brim with equipment almost all other members/volunteers car shared, public transport or biked/came on foot. But more importantly we were so pleased to see so many participants coming by public transportation or car sharing! We did not have dedicated parking and instead ensured there were clear details on how to get to the event by public transportation to encourage this type of travel. We also asked in the entry form how people planned to travel and those that answered, only 25 looked to be coming by car on their own! Alison our resident carbon accountant has tried to look at the emissions savings but sadly there is still some work to be done on collecting the right type of data for this, while also ensuring GDPR compliance. We are aware of some train journeys from Edinburgh though, which round trip saves around 21kg of CO2e compared to a single driver! 

The environment isn’t just about the travel emissions though, we asked people to bring their own refillable water bottles and to think about leaving the venues better than we found them. The organising crew were also trying to minimise waste and therefore chalk and cones were used were possible instead of plastic tape. And we have saved all start lists and spare maps to print on the other side if at all possible. This is especially important for the waterproof “paper” maps as these cannot be recycled in your paper bin due to the plastic content in them to make it waterproof. 

What were your highlights from the weekend?

The highlight for me was the great reactions we got from so many of the attendees on each day of the event. Everyone enjoyed the event and we had such positive feedback both in person and via email since. It was a great opportunity for the club to make a full weekend of orienteering after agreeing to host the City Race Euro Tour and we are so happy with how it worked out. We don’t have any more events of this magnitude coming up but are regularly holding local events and training around Glasgow - all of which is on our website. For any other club considering hosting a weekend like this I would encourage you to go for it! It has brought all our club members together to support the event which has been great. We would also be delighted to give a few pointers to any other club's planning such events.