Scottish Juniors emerge victorious at the Junior Home Internationals

The boys relay continued to go like a dream with James handing over to Finlay McLuckie (MOR) and finally Ewan Musgrave (MAROC) and all three of them recording the fastest times on their respective legs to secure a win on the boys relay with a 12 minute lead.   In the girls race the 1^st Scottish girls team finished in 2^nd place –  congratulations to Ruth Gooch (MAROC), Scarlett Kelly (FVO) and Isobel Howard (MOR). The courses were much admired and everyone loved the challenge of Loch Vaa – although it did catch out quite a few!

It was great to have the relays alongside the Middle Race, and have so many people along to support and cheer on the juniors. The team spirit and enthusiasm was great to see – especially towards the end as we waited for the final finishers who were cheered on and accompanied down the run in with much much noise and enthusiasm by their team mates and friends from the other nations too!

At the end of the day the scores were:-

England          54 points

Scotland         50 points

Wales              22 points

Ireland            16 points

It was still all to play for in the Individuals the next day.

It was then time to head back to Lagganlia to scrub off the facepaint, remove the ticks and catch up with friends.  It was then the mammoth task of feeding the hungry hordes, before a ceilidh in the evening. Somehow everyone still found the energy to dance – but it was very quiet at lights out time for a change!

After fears of bad weather for Sunday, the rain held off as the juniors headed off up Creag Dubh to the starts for the Individual race. Creag Dubh provided some tough racing – with most returning to tales of “it was ok apart from the x minutes lost at one control”.  The challenging terrain though suited the Scots who rose to the challenge with some incredible results to win the Individuals by 13 points and to take the overall trophy.

After some strong results in the Individuals, Ireland emerged victorious over Wales to retain the Judith Wingham Platter

Full results, including Routegadget and Winsplits are available at:

Individual:  https://www.basoc.org.uk/events/creag-dhubh-2022-10-09

Relay:  https://www.scottish-orienteering.org/documents/results/latest-results/

A huge thank you to Mike Stewart for planning the relays, Graham McIntyre for organising and Richard Oxlade for controlling and all in Interlopers who helped make the event happen, as well as to Robin, Sheila and Kirsten Strain for running the computing for the relays. Thanks to BASOC and Lynne Walker for planning, Jo Cumming for organising and Alan Halliday for controlling the individuals. Thanks to everyone in BASOC and all the other volunteers from other Scottish clubs who helped out at the Individuals – the Scottish Orienteering Community is just fantastic the way it all pulls together.

It was also lovely to have so many competitors return from their own battles with Creag Dubh in the SOL to ask “Well did they do it?”  and to be able to answer “Yes – they did it in style!” (They just like to keep us on our toes!)

Jon and I must have the best roles in Scottish Orienteering helping and supporting junior orienteers. Their team spirit, enthusiasm and determination is an inspiration and it is so much fun to be involved with the squad.  Congratulations to them all for a wonderful result this weekend.