(An article I posted to the O-Net in December 1997.)

December 1997 has been fairly traumatic so far. I started a new job on the 1st. I managed two days there before a short break to be at the birth of my first child. James made his first appearance at an O event at Wisley on the 14th, and I discovered the joys of split starts for the first time at Trent Park on the 21st. But the really momentous occasion was at the SAXONS event at Ightham on the 28th - for this was my last race as an M21.


 

I was in the LOK team that won the Harvester Trophy Relay in 1986, and this still counts as one of my best results ever. Here Peter Waldron reports on the event in Lokation 53. The title is taken from "Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven " by W.B.Yeats, which ends with the perhaps better known line "Tread softly because you tread on my dreams".

A couple of dozen members of LOK stood expectantly at the finish of the Harvester Trophy overnight relay early on the morning of 14 September, eagerly awaiting Mark Chapman to appear from the forest and bring the first team home to win by at least the twenty-minute lead he had set out with on the last leg. Minutes passed without any sign of him, and restlessness grew, not helped by the commentator’s speculation as to Mark's whereabouts. At last, though, down the run-in he came: not, however the confident and triumphant figure we'd expected, but disconsolate-looking and hesitant, stopping to explain that there seemed to be a punch-mark missing from his control card. The next five minutes were harrowing in the extreme as the card was checked and Mark explained what had happened - during the last quarter of the course he'd noticed the missing punch and had run back several km to try to find out which one it was, but without success. To the extreme relief of the team, and not least Mark himself, the planner announced that the card was complete (two punches in a single box!) and LOK had won the Harvester!

Helen organised the LOK National Event on Leith Hill in 1993. I was Entries Secretary and then ran the Finish. Many of you will remember the blizzard that struck during the event, and the temperature was so low that our finish computer clock started running slow. I ended up timing nearly 1400 people on my wristwatch. The following items are reproduced from an article in wrote in Lokation 88.

• The first letter asking for land permission went out in November 1991.  The last permission was received in November 1992, some time after we had spent a lot of money on the map and survey.
• Up until 10 days before the event we didn't have the toilets booked, since the company did not receive the booking letter sent in January.  When contacted by Helen in February they were not sure that they could get the required number of toilets for the weekend.
• At least six people, including a family of four, managed to pre-enter the event twice.

(Reflections on Day 3 of the Scottish 6-Day 1991 reproduced from Lokation 79. I believe it's normal to apologise to Wordsworth at this point.) 

I wandered lonely as a cloud

Upon a distant Scottish hill,

When all at once I saw a crowd,
Not one of them was standing still,
Beyond the lake, above the trees,
And there amongst them Helen Teece.

Continuous as the stars that shine,
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line,
But only eight from LOK,
I gave the map a hopeful glance,
I'm in the circle now perchance.

The pack ran left, and then ran right,
And up and down, and to and fro,
But number five was out of sight,
Full fifty metres down below,
And then it struck me clear as day,
I'm off the map by half a k.

For oft when on my couch I lie,
And contemplate this sport of O,
I wonder how I passed five by,
And why didn't Ian or Tim or Ro,
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And least I didn't count Bowhill.

The Maprunner WOC Database has now been updated with some new features and to be a bit more user-friendly. It includes a Maprunner WOC Ranking List, and is also linked to the the World of O Runners page. 

Results from WOC 2007 in Kiev are now in as well.

(A brief history of electronic punching in Great Britain, reproduced from the January 1999 CompassSport.)

Electronic punching is now an established part of major international events, and is beginning to extend into mainstream orienteering. The concept is simple: the traditional pin punch and control card are replaced by an electronic control marker and control card. The result is instant punch checking, your own printed split times, and even full timing of the event. CompassSport over the past two years has carried a number of articles on electronic punching. By now many of  you will have had a chance to try it for yourself at one of the test races in Britain, or at major events abroad. The World Masters in the Czech Republic, the Shamrock O-Ringen in Ireland  and the Italian 5-Day all went electronic in 1998, to name just three events. So what is happening in Britain, and why?

During the recent World Championships whilst trying to review WOC history I found out just how difficult it was to find full results for previous WOCs. It also struck me that the commentary team were struggling to determine quite how significant some of the results were. Had a Chinese runner ever qualified for a final before? I've managed to obtain nearly all results from WOCS (no B Finals yet), and have got everything in a single database. Please try out the various queries available and see what you find.