Abbotsholme School Hosts East Midlands Orienteering Sprint Championships

  • 9 years ago
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Abbotsholme School Orienteering
Abbotsholme pupils competing

Abbotsholme was the venue for a major orienteering event on Saturday 29 November in which over 80 runners from across the region entered the ‘East Midlands Sprint Orienteering Championships’, organised by the Derwent Valley Orienteering Club (DVO).

Sprint orienteering involves navigating round short courses in intricate terrain. The routes took runners around the school buildings, darting down little passageways, under arches, across fences and through courtyards. This format of orienteering involves close map work and concentration, whilst moving as quickly as possible. Competitors had to complete two different courses with the results combined for the final positions.

Abbotsholme’s pupils did very well with Henry Sanderson winning the Men’s 16 year old category (finishing in twentieth place out of the 84 taking part), Jake Bayley winning the Men’s 12s and Elsie Jones the Women’s Under 12s. Other Abbotsholmians achieved ‘placed’ results in their age class, with second for Alex Hesp-Gollins in the Men’s 16s, second for Leo Conway-Johnson in the Men’s 12s, third for Matthew Griffiths in the Men’s 12s and third for Isobel Brown in the Women’s 16s.

For some Abbotsholmians, this was the seventh event of a busy programme of orienteering this term.

A number of Abbotsholme parents also took part, either partnering their children or on their own, fostering a wonderful family flavour to the event, with other parents helping to serve drinks and snacks to the competitors, raising money for cancer research.

The overall winner was Duncan Birtwhistle of the University of Bristol Orienteering Club, with Hannah Cox of Leicester Orienteers being the fastest woman.

The school is enormously grateful to the DVO members who planned the whole event and hopes it will be able to host further events such as this.

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