Gold medal success for Isobel Howard as Moravian Orienteers impress at British Long Distance Championships in Yorkshire
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Moravian Orienteers enjoyed medal success and some great performances at the British long distance championships in Yorkshire.
The Moray club sent 11 athletes to the event venue near Whitby and they all did the area proud with some impressive displays.
Isobel Howard impressed with two gold medals and a silver, while brother-and-sister Kate and Finlay McLuckie again impressed with medal performances.
The medals were handed out by British long distance athletics legend Steve Cram, who won Olympic silver and world championship gold at 1500 metres.
One of the Moray members taking part, veteran Eddie Harwood described the terrain and the competition: “The beautiful area consists of two parallel steep-sided wooded river valleys. A section of unpleasant recent tree felling marred the early part of most courses, but it was the dreadfully wet winter and spring that caused the most trouble.
“A long section towards the end ran along a very steep slope on which no footwear could give any decent grip, so all forward momentum was impeded by the need to try to stay upright and not shoot off down the slope. Nevertheless I thought it was overall a very good challenge.”
Sunday’s action incorporated the British relay championships in a nearby forest, the first half of which proved to be very beautiful and runnable mossy forest which was unexpectedly extremely technical, lacking paths and with lots of small holes and gullies. The second part was more like a rather flatter version of Saturday’s event.
The Friday evening also included a junior sprint race in York University being used as a selection race for the Junior World Championships (JWOC) and the European Youth Championships (EYOC).
The results for Moravian were very impressive. Isobel Howard has consistently been coming a close second in all this year’s selection race and finally managed to win in the Women 20- section in both the sprint and Sunday’s relay running with Edinburgh University.
In the long event she again was a close second, with her overall performance surely enough to be selected for JWOC.
Kate McLuckie won bronze in the long distance, a seriously good result in her first year at W18- Elite, a result which she hopes will get her selection for EYOC.
Finlay McLuckie, M 16- was third in the sprint selection and had a decent run, but too many small errors cost him dearly in this highly competitive class.
Sophie Howard W16- and Michael Bishenden M18- elite had good single figure placings in both selection races. Eddie Harwood at M70+ was on for a second place in the long, but arrived at a wrong control without realising and was disqualified.
The relays did not disappoint. Apart from Isobel Howards’ gold placed team, Moravian’s juniors consisting of Michael Bishenden, M18, Kate McLuckie, W18 and Finlay McLuckie, M16 had a very exciting race in the men 18- class.
Bishenden made a big mistake of over seven minutes early on and eventually came in under seven minutes down in eighth place.
Of the McLuckie siblings, Kate, the only girl in the competition, had a decent run on the second leg, but Finlay set off just over 10 minutes behind second and third with the team, still in eighth place.
He stormed round in the fastest time of the day by three clear minutes and was finally unable to bridge the gap but was chasing the third place team on the run in.
