Nopesport

Every year at the end of winter the orienteering world descend on the Danish Island of Zealand to kick off the Scandinavian orienteering season with the Danish Spring Cup.

The British Junior squad make the trip every year, and this year they were joined by a delegation from the Start Squad, a Bristol OK team and a handful of other British and Irish runners.

The format is simple: a short night race on Friday night, a classic on Saturday and a Relay on Sunday.

Night Sprint - Teglstrup Hegn.

Oleg Chepelin, running for the Swedish club OK Tyr, took a top class second place on the H17-20Elite class. Oleg was joined in the top 10 by Duncan Coombs who finished 6th.
Rose Hodkinson was the only British starter in D17-20E, and she finished in 24th.

There were good British results in the oleder age classes however, with Mark Saunders and Alice Bedwell (both BOK/Sugar Loaf OK) winning H/D45 respectively, with great performances. Marks win was narrow: just 2 seconds ahead of 2nd while Alice had a little more breathing room: 15 seconds!

Classic - Tisvilde Hegn �st

The Spring Cup usually offers flat fast orienteering with vague contours, lots of tracks, ditches and veg boundaries, and often an few patches of green. This area on the north west coast was no exception, and its bingo controls claimed a few victims.

Scott Fraser and Ruth Holmes were the stars of the day finishing 3rd and 4th on H20E adn D18E respectively. Mark Saunders kept up his good form with a 3rd place on H45 but there was disapointment for Matt Speake on 21E, after finishing in the top 15 last year he slumped to 68th place, beaten by Ewan McCarthy (51st) who has previously recorded top 5 places in the junior classes.

Relay - Grib Skov Nord

For many runners the Spring Cup Relay is the highlight of the weekend, and recent years have seen tight battles with sprint finishes for the title. With two main classes and over 100 teams in each the pack racing is fast and furious, with winning times well under 5min/km.
Matt Speake showed, once again, what a reliable first leg talent he is. after coming back first in the World Cup relay in october, he finished 7th on first leg today, with Scott Fraser brining Savedalens first team in in 15th.
The final results brought the GBR girls team of Lizzie Adams, Ruth Holmes and Helen Gardner into 25th place, a highly creditable result. The all-British, all-Scottish and almost (give it 6 months....) all-EUOC team from OK Tyr of James Tullie, Duncan Coombs, Kyle Heron and Oleg Chepelin finished in 41st place after strong runs throughout the race.

Spring Cup Website

Scott Fraser (EUOC/INT/Savedalens) - 3rd.