The British Schools Orienteering Champs were held last weekend at Hawley & Hornley, nr Camberley. Sarah Bedford had a fantastic run to acheive 3rd place in the Year 6 Girls class, representing Oakridge Primary School. She was a mere 1:23 behind the winner out of a class of 37 runners.

Well done Sarah!

A smaller than usual team missing some key runners turned out to represent Chasers at the LEI event at Bagworth Woods, competing against the East Midlands teams of Nottinghamshire, Derwent Valley & Leicestershire orienteering clubs. We had some excellent results but missed out on qualification for the final, which will be at Sandringham in early December.

Best wishes to DVO, who go through as round winners.

Chasers results were:

Green Boys:
3^rd Adam Bushnell

Green Girls:
5^th Em Garside
7^th Amy Thompson

Light Green Boys:
3^rd Stuart Clayton

Light Green Girls:
1^st Helen Clayton
4^th Clare Garside

Orange Boys:
2^nd Sam Musters
3^rd Mark Robinson
10^th Dave Allen

Orange Girls:
4^th Hannah Garside

Yellow Boys:
5^th Sam Thompson
9^th Andy Collins
12^th Joe Perry
13^th Kiaran Radcliffe

Yellow Girls:
1^st Sarah Bedford
5^th Jess Ryde

With everyone who finished in the top 4 counting towards our points total, plus one of Jess, Sam T & Em.

Well, we made it to the final this year (hurrah!), and the event couldn’t have been more convenient – held in Sutton Park, an area many of us know well.

It turned out to be a day of mixed fortunes, giving Chasers 8th place overall.
We had two top 10 finishers – Beth Clayton 7th on Green and Jane Christopher 5th on Short Green. There were many other solid performances under some heavyweight competition – good effort team!

Our normally strong Blue Men team foundered somewhat with an impressive 7 of 17 runners failing to finish with a mixture of injuries, missing controls, running the wrong course etc. That must be a record – so much choice for the SPAM Award!!

Overall, great to get to the final, and a local event meant a good turnout and great club spirit – lets try and climb those rankings next year…..

Over 50 juniors from Chasers-linked schools headed to Sherwood Pines for the British Schools Score Championships.
Oakridge were one of the top primary schools, winning the Primary Girls Team competition, & there were good turnouts from both Walton High School & King Edwards, Aston.
Sarah Bedford had the best performance of the day, winning Year 6 Girls by 10 points with 20 minutes to spare!

Other top 15 performances came from:

Year 5 Girls
4^th 130pts 27:09  Lauren Bullivant & Matilda Ryde

Year 6 Girls
1^st 150     24:07  Sarah Bedford
12^th 120     44:20  Kathryn Smith
13^th 110     30:43  Natalie Weston

Year 8 Girls
7^th 140     40:03    Jess Ryde (Walton)

Year 9 Girls
4^th 170     41:27    Hannah Garside (Walton)

Year 10 & 11 Girls
11th 200 52:21 Beth Jones (Walton)

Year 12 & 13 Girls
7th 230 52:14 Clare Garside (Walton)

Year 8 Boys
11^th 180     43:43  Jakub Burger (Walton)

Well done to you all.

The 24th-27th September saw Walton Chasers’ Mark Stodgell pull on a GB top to make his international debut at the European Mountain Bike Orienteering Championships. The event was held in the sand dune forests on the Baltic coast of Lithuania. The 4 days of competition started with a middle distance race, followed by a sprint race, a long race and a team relay.Stodgell’s best performance came in the sprint race, where he was heading for a top 30 finishing position before the disadvantage of an early start told, and a few mistakes towards the end cost him crucial seconds dropping him down the field.

The most exciting event of the competition was the relay where a mass start saw 2 team members from each country sprint to their bikes before heading off around their courses. An excellent ride from Stodgell saw him bring Team GB 2 in just behind Team GB 1, despite a spectacular crash involving an oncoming Danish competitor. “I’m very glad I was wearing my helmet,” said Stodgell, “As I hit the ground I heard the crack and was relieved it was my helmet that was broken and not my collar bone or worse.”

“It was a great experience that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed, but I think I can improve. I’m going to use the experience to motivate me to train hard over the winter ready for next years selection races for the World Champs in Israel.”

Well done Stodge!!

7th place at the British Champs in Scotland has secured a place in the British team which competes in the European MTBO Champs in Lithuania. The event in September consists of a week long competition, Long, Middle, Sprint are then followed by relays.

European Champs website here….

The Championships were held on a hot & sunny day inBaggeridge Country Park, hosted by HOC.
There was an excellent turnout from Chasers-affiliated schools, and some excellent results.

There were podium finishes from:

Sarah Bedford (3rd, Year 5 Girls)
Ross Deakin & Edward Sinclair-Hughes (3rd, Year 6 Boys)
Jess Ryde (3rd, Year 7/8 Girls)
Sophie Thomas (3rd, Year 11+ Girls)
Mikey Hopkins (3rd, Year 11+ Boys)

Other top 10 finishes came from:
Natalie Weston (5th, Year 5 Girls)
Jason Roberts & John Morgan (4th, Year 6 Boys)
Hannah Garside (5th, Year 7/8 Girls)
Oliver Howell (8th, Year 7/8 Boys)
Jordan Carlton (9th, Year 7/8 Boys)
Dave Allen (8th, Year 9/10 Boys)
Shyelle Prescod (9th, Year 9/10 Boys)
Adam Bushnell (5th, Year 11+ Boys)
Will Viles (7th, Year 11+ Boys)

Finally, well done to Oakridge who picked up second place in theJunior School team competition.

Full results from the competition can be found athttp://www.harlequins.org.uk/results/100508_XC4.htm

The 2008 British Champs were held in Culbin Forest, near Forres in Scotland. 14 Chasers made the long journey north and were rewarded by a fantastic forest and good weather (much appreciated after the JK!). We had 2 class winners:

W35S Cath Williams
W65L Jane Christopher

Other top ten performances were:
M35S Mark Stodgell 4th
M70L Doug Peel 10th
W40S Alison Yeates 2nd
W45L Beth Clayton 5th

A small band stayed for the relays and so Chasers were represented by 2 teams:
Men’s Short – Iain Stamp, Andy Yeates, Mark Stodgell – 8th
Women’s Short – Cath Williams, Alison Yeates, Jane Christopher – 16th

All in all an excellent weekend and well worth the trip to the far north.

Doug Peel has won Stafford Borough Council’s award for a special contirbution to sport. He was awarded the prize at an awards evening at the end of February. The summary of his fantastic contribution is:

“Doug’s involvement in orienteering goes back to the 1971 as a competitor and official. He has always been a Chaser and has been heavily involved in the club from the outset. He has twice been club chairman, has mapped Cannock Chase and is still our mapping guru. He is now Walton Chasers’ honorary president in recognition of his contribution to the club. Nationally he has been Chairman of the Fixtures Committee, an international coach, personal coach to two Walton Chasers international athletes, Chairman of the National Coaching Committee and senior coach of the British Junior Squad. He has organised a day of the orienteering world cup when it came to the UK, and was an indispensible member of the organising team for the two major multi-day national events to have come to Cannock Chase in the last few years. ”

Doug is pictured right at the club dinner – not quite how we usually see him!

Bob Dredge was also at the awards ceremony, having been nominated for the Sports Performer fo the Year (Male) category.

The JK festival of orienteering was held over the Easter weekend in the South East, between Guildford & Royal Tunbridge Wells. The event will likely be mostly remembered for it’s weather. We had lots of it. Friday’s sprint race was relatively unscathed, made up for by horiziontal hail on Saturday and horizontal snow on Sunday and Monday! Thanks to all who assisted with getting the club tent there, up and down – it’s a little bent, but survived and was much appreciated.
We had some great performances – 3 individual and 1 relay podium places:
W35S – Cath Williams – 3rd
W45L – Beth Clayton – 3rd
W65L – Jane Christopher – 3rd
and 1st place to Beth Clayton, Jane Christopher & Hazel Waters in the W165+ relay!

Other good finishers (top 10 – ish) were:
M14B – Alex Grew – 5th
M20E – Mikey Hopkins – 11th
M21E – Matt Crane – 8th (recently defected to SYO but great run)
M21L – Iain Stamp – 8th
M35S – Mark Stodgell – 6th
M55L – Jonathan Howell – 7th
W14B – Hannah Garside – 5th
W21V – Claire Stamp – 5th
and Men’s Short relay of Mikey, Stodge & Iain in a creditable 11th.

Well done to all – just pray for better weather at the British Champs next month……

The 2008 Midlands Championships were held at NOC’s Robin Hood Trophy event yesterday in Sherwood Forest on a lovely sunny day. Chasers now have 5 Midland Champions, so well done to all of you!

Hazel Waters W55
Seonaid Dudly W65
Marlene Palmer W70
Elaine Dunn W75
Norman Hall M70

The 2008 Club Champs were held at the Stepping Stones CSC Qualifier match. Well done to all outright winners and also to the handicap winners. Link here

Also, we’re through to the CSC Final!!! Although OD beat us on the day, because they won the CSC last year, we get a buy through. The final is in October at Sutton Park, so plenty of time to get fit so Chasers can win once again!! CSC Results here