THE SENIOR HOME INTERNATIONAL 2013

Carlingford, County Louth, Republic of Ireland, 28-29 September 2013

England Team Manager’s Report

Summary
This year’s Senior Home International was hosted in Carlingford, Ireland by Fingal Orienteers and 3ROC, ably co-ordinated by Philip Baxter of the Northern Ireland Orienteering Association. The two clubs provided some excellent orienteering and Philip arranged ideal accommodation.

As is usual, England was unable to field a full first-choice team (for many different reasons) but this gave others, who might not otherwise, the opportunity to represent their country. This they ably did.

England convincingly won the relays on Saturday afternoon, despite one team member sustaining a serious ankle injury. The girls finished first and second (and could have been third too had the last runner not stopped to aid the injured competitor). The men finished first and sixth, with the Scots in second and fifth, so honors were shared in the Men’s Relay. This gave England a 4 point lead overnight. More mixed results in the Individual race meant that England was beaten into second place behind Scotland (and only just ahead of Ireland!). The combined results unfortunately gave victory to Scotland, but only by the smallest of margins.

Accommodation
The England team, along with the other teams, were accommodated at Carlingford Adventure Centre. Breakfasts, packed lunches and dinner on Saturday evening were provided on site.

Travelling
Team members all booked flights to either Dublin or Belfast from various departure points across England. Once in Ireland, we met up and shared a total of five hire cars for transport within Ireland.

Social
There was no officially organised social but many team members took advantage of the numerous pubs and lively night life within very short range. Others spent the evening in the common rooms provided in the accommodation.

Day 1 Relay
Carnawaddy

England placed first and second in the Women’s Relay. The first placed team consisted of Zoe Harding, Helen Gardner and Sarah Rollins. The second team was Sarah Jones, Ruth Holmes and Tessa Hill. The Men’s Relay teams finished first and sixth. The winning team consisted of Will Gardner, Duncan Archer and Dave Schorah. The area was typical Irish mountain moorland. The first two (from three) teams from each country count in this part of the competition with points being allocated from 8 to the winner down to 1 for the eighth placed team. Carl Edmonds running second leg for the third English team suffered a serious ankle injury and was unable to complete the race. Abi Weeds, running third leg for the third English women’s team (and placed third at the time) gave up her run to accompany Carl until assistance arrived. England won the Dolgellau Bowl for the leading team after the first day’s competition. Full relay results can be found at http://www.orienteering.ie/result2?oaction=fullSIRelayResult&id=2135

Relay Team Results

  Men Women Overall
England 11 15 26
Scotland 11 11 22
Wales 5 0 5
Ireland 8 7 15

Day 2 Individual
Carlingford Mountain

Sunday morning dawned dry, but windy and with low cloud. Carlingford mountain rises (nearly vertically!) from sea level to over 400m and the top 100-200m was in the cloud. This made for a very open and testing Individual race and minimising big mistakes was order of the day. Some coped better than others. Two of the four individual class winners came from Ireland and Scotland were the only nation without a winner. England’s winner was Zoe Harding in W20 who came home 17 minutes ahead of the rest of the field! Natalie Beadle finished second giving us a convincing class win.

The M21’s seemed to struggle more than most with two of the six runners failing to complete the course. Most unusually we finished behind both Wales and Ireland (as well as Scotland) in this class. Our M20’s were badly affected by injury. As well as Carl Edmonds, out due to his injury the day before, Chris Owens was also carrying an injury and had to retire. Helen Gardner was our best finisher in W21, comfortably beating our more fancied competitors. The mixed results in W21 made for an interesting competition, with England just pipping Scotland by a single point/place. The first two runners from each country count towards the team results in M/W20 and the first four in M/W21. The winner of each class is allocated 8 (7 for M/W20) points down to 2 (or 1) for the losers. These points are then added to the relay points to decide the overall winner. Full individual results can be found at http://www.orienteering.ie/result2?oaction=fullSIResult&id=2137

Individual Team Results

  Men Women Overall
England 5 15 20
Scotland 15 11 26
Ireland 11 5 16
Wales 5 5 10

Overall

  Men Women Overall
England 16 30 46
Scotland 26 22 48
Wales 10 5 15
Ireland 19 12 31

Acknowledgements
Huge thanks are due to Philip Baxter who co-ordinated the whole weekend and to Fingal Orienteers and 3ROC orienteering clubs for hosting the weekend.

My thanks also to the team members for advice and generally helping to make my job easy over the whole weekend.

Charlie Adams
England SHI Team Manager