Nopesport

Compass Sport Cup Final

This year’s Compass Sport Cup and Trophy Final took place at Pillar Woods, nr Grimsby, expertly put on by HALO. The area was an exceedingly fast beech forest, with just a few areas of undergrowth. The early starters were unfortunate as tracks quickly appeared through the nettles and brambles, but with clubs being given the option of a number of start times for each course, everyone had their best runners off near the end of the 3 hour start block.

The clubs being tipped for success for the Cup competition were reigning champions NOC, the most local club to the final AIRE, and regular final contenders WCH. In the Trophy the Salisbury based SARUM had a wealth of top juniors as well as some strong competition in the senior and veteran classes, and FVO were big contenders as every Scottish club who had ever attended the final had won.

With the first few runners finished just after mid-day it was discovered that times were even quicker than expected. Ken Patterson (AIRE) described his run as “the quickest 7km he’d ever run!” It was apparent that this would be many people’s quickest run for some time. The efficient results service had overall team scores going up as each set of results went up, with the lead changing hands a number of times. In the Cup competition, MDOC put in an early surge, then it was NOC who took the lead, and as each clubs top runners finished AIRE emerged at the top of the results. However, it would not be confirmed until all the results had come in. In the Trophy competition, SARUM showed their worth as one of the country’s most improving clubs, but soon FVO’s Scottish contingent edged ahead, but again, nothing was confirmed until the final results were produced.

So to the prize-giving, which thankfully was on time as the weather was not ideal. The organiser thanked the landowner, the Earl of Yarborough, for use of the area free of charge. Thanks were also given to Compass Sport for arranging the competition, with Suse Coon on hand to present the prizes, and thanks were also given for the sterling work put in by the HALO team plus planners, controller and organiser.
And to the results:

Class Wins
Brown Ian Nixon AIRE
Blue Women Christine Currie SOC
Blue Men Colin Olivant NOC
Green Women Stefanie Blomquist SARUM
Green Men Gareth Bryan-Jones FVO
Light Green Jack Wood AIRE
Orange George Stevens AIRE

Cup:
1- Airienteers (869)
2- Nottinghamshire (811)
3- Walton Chasers (689)
4- Southdowns (686)
5- Manchester & District (637)
6- Southampton (461)

Trophy
1- Forth Valley (522)
2- Sarum (456)
3- Essex Stragglers (432)
4- Eryri (372)
5- Claro (324)
6- Swansea Bay (294)

Results available here

Couple of other snippets: It's Airienteers' first win since 1985, although appeared in
final quite a few times since then. They've now emulated Nottinghamshire's
achievement last year, in becoming only the second club to do the double, and hold
both Yvette Baker Trophy and Compass Sport Cup at same time. (AWK)