BUSA 2005 was superbly organised by Warwick University and OD, great orienteering, great social and great results...if you were from Sheffield. Going into the weekend we had expected a tough show-down between Edinburgh, bouyed by the success of the JK relays and ourselves, out for revenge. Due to a strange set of coincidences things didn't really work out that way.
We
started well in the individual competition. I was very happy with my race in
the ultra fast terrain of Bently Woods and finished 1st, just a small margin
ahead of Sheffield teammate Matt Crane. Next came Scott Fraser of Edinburgh,
who was subsequently to declare himself non-competitive having raced much of
the course without a map. So bronze eventually goes to Graham Gristwood who
ran very strongly, especially considering he was also responsible for much of
the weekend's orgainisation. Neil Northrop finished in 6th and Rachael Elder
took bronze in the women's race behind Aislinn Ausitin and Cerys Manning.Back to Warwick's very posh campus for food, prizes and a party. I'm too old nowadays to feature heavily in this part of the weekend, but ShUOC put in some good performances from Will Spain (cake), Craney (air guitar) and Rhys (pea soup).
It
seemed that the main advantage of having a relay on campus was always going
to be the fact you could stagger directly from your room to the start line.
As it turned out though, this was a really great relay terrain, with extensive
areas of weird shaped buildings, lakes, landscaping and even bits of woodland.
We got off to a flying start in the shape of Andrew Middleditch and Rob Little
who came back in 1st and 2nd respectively on 1st leg. I was the middle man and
managed to pull out a bit of time on Oleg Chepelin of Edinburgh, who put me
under pressure all the way. Matt Crane anchored us home to a win, but as it
turned out, he needn't have tried so hard. Edinburgh, who finished 2nd were
dsq'd, followed, basically by loads of other teams who hadn't checked their
codes. Unlucky. By some bizarre twist of fate, all of our teams had, leaving
us with a completely ShUOC podium. Nice one!
While
the women couldn't quite match the men's performance, they came close. Hazel
Tant started well on 1st leg but dropped a bit of time after a mistake in the
maze of buildings. Laura Daniel, full of jetlag, ran well to pull back some
time on the leaders, and Rachael Elder ran a great race to finally overtake
Edinburgh to finish 2nd behind Oxford. Thanks to Warwick for a great weekend, and to Edinburgh for making our lives easier. Seriously though, it will be much tougher next year when we have to take them on in their home turf.
7/4/05: JD and Helen's wedding
Whilst Oli was away winning at BUSA I travelled up to Braemar for GB squad captain Jon Duncan's wedding to Helen Adamson. We were very lucky with the weather and enjoyed a lovely run up Morven on the morning before the ceremony at 2pm followed by mini-Highland games, dinner and ceilidh! It was a fantastic day topped off by me catching Helen's bouquet!!!!!!!!!!!!! Congratulations to Jon and Helen, we hope you are enjoying your honeymoon on the Isle of Skye.