Event spotlight: Icenian Weekend 2025

We secured permission from Cambridgeshire City Council and Trumpington Meadows Wildlife Trust, which we used when hosting the BUCs Relay in 2024. The process of gaining permissions for Trumpington was smooth, with thanks to Cambridgeshire City Council, and Trumpington Meadows Wildlife Trust for the use of the meadows for the young junior courses. We were very fortunate to receive support from Trumpington Sport Leisure Centre for the afternoon assembly.

Images below: Day 1 Trumpington (Morning). Credit: David Dixon (HH)

Both maps are jointly owned by Cambridge University Orienteering Club (CUOC) and West Anglian Orienteering Club (WAOC) having been drawn by John Ockenden (DRONGO) in 2017. Caroline Louth (WAOC) has kindly done map extensions and artwork for the club since then.

WAOC were extremely helpful towards the planning, logistics and execution of the weekend. Whilst CUOC provided organisers and planners, we relied on WAOC for support and invaluable advice, as well as borrowing kit (Dibbers, tents, start equipment etc…), mapping updates (Caroline Louth), SI set-up and results upload (Stephen Borrill), prizes for day 1 (Hebe Darwin) as well as many volunteers to help on the day.

Images below:  Day 1 Trumpington (Morning). Credit: Tom + Ciel Matthew (SROC)

Day 1 - Trumpington

In total, we had 244 competitors. Trumpington is a new-build estate, quite 'blocky' and repetitive in structure. It's the type of area that would be simple to navigate through if you are walking, but becomes challenging at speed as features rush up on runners, and any mistakes are extremely punishing. 

The morning courses were planned with this in mind: a series of short, less significant legs preceding either a long leg diagonal to any of the roads or a long leg with a route choice typically of around 50-80m difference. This gave runners limited time to plan a route ahead, causing many to choose a zigzaggy route through the houses, rather than an equidistant and much simpler route around the outside. All courses finished with a series of short legs towards the end.

Older juniors were permitted to race around the estates on a course comparable to the Men's and Women's open, while the youngest juniors enjoyed the local parks adjacent to each of the areas. Juniors and their parents were grateful for maintaining the technicality of the courses, something which typically deters older juniors from attending sprint/urban events.

Images below: Day 1 Trumpington (Afternoon). Credit: David Dixon (HH)

In the afternoon, we moved to a different area of Trumpington, similar in character but bisected by the guided busway, which limits the shape of courses somewhat. We thought that this would be a better fit for the afternoon, since the slightly more linear courses would be enhanced by the pressure of a chasing start for the open courses. 

Courses started into the more technical Northern area, where seemingly regular shapes can provide a false sense of security. The opportunity to make errors here would punish those whose chase strategy was to start fast and catch up with someone to follow. Unlike in conventional formats, following was not something I wanted to explicitly avoid in the chase, but I also didn't want it to be a dominant strategy. Longer legs followed, with mostly even route choices in the hope that runners in head-to-head situations would have the tactical decision of "stick or twist" to make. The chase courses finished with a relatively simpler section, but nothing is easy under pressure and at high speed. 

Making the non-chase courses interesting was a case of trying to find the "greatest hits" of the chase courses - fortunately, most of the interesting technical detail was near the centre of the arena, so distance requirements did not cost these runners the chance to race in the best parts of the area.

Older juniors were again allowed to race on the quiet roads, which allowed access to most of the area, while the youngest juniors were again let loose in the adjacent parkland.

Our highlights from Day 1

It was great to see so many people and families orienteering. We had a lot of positive feedback on the courses for both the morning and the afternoon courses, with many people saying that it gave them a lot of confidence and was good preparation for future elite sprints! The afternoon chasing start was a success, with 71 people participating across the WO/MO, and a variety of routechoice seen in Routegadget.

Overall Results - CUOC Icenian Trumpington

Images below: Day 2 (Huntington) Credits: David Dixon & Tom Matthew.

Day 2 - Huntingdon 

The process of gaining permissions for Huntingdon was smooth, but particular thanks to Huntingdonshire District Council for their permission to use Oxmoor Lane (among other green spaces) this was a great area to stage the young junior course on. St John's Primary School were supportive of the event and this was a perfect centre to base the event out of.

The map was provided to us by WAOC and only required minimal updates having last been used in 2021. These were undertaken by Bob Hill and Caroline Louth (WAOC).

Images below: Day 2 (Huntington) Credit: David Dixon

The volunteers of Icenian 2025

We had a wonderful group of around 25 volunteers, the majority from CUOC and WAOC.

We couldn’t have done this event without all of the volunteers who stepped in, but I’d like to especially thank all the volunteers who helped with the chasing start Hertfordshire Orienteering Club (HH) of volunteers from HH for the chasing start, Stephen Borrill - for his help on SI set-up and results, Olly Tonge, Hebe Darwin, for designing wonderful medals, and controllers Peter Woods and Bruce Marshall.
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Well done to the Club on organising a successful weekender. We appreciate all the contributions and insights provided.