Nopesport

Orienteers, in particular those from Team Compasspoint, led the way at yesterday's Open 5 Adventure race in the Lake District. The event, the 3rd in this years series, was based in Broughton in Furness and promised a warren of paths and bridleways for competitors to navigate on both bike and foot.

For those unfamiliar with the format, it is essentially a score orienteering event using 1:50,000 & 1:25,000 scale maps for bike and foot sections respectively. Competitors attempt to collect as many controls as possible in the 5 hours time limit with some controls only available on the biking section and others only available on the running section. Competitors can take part individually or in pairs, in which case they must run or ride together.

In the solo classes it was Janine Hensman who took a comfortable win in the Female solo class with 530 points, 3rd place going to Hilary Bloor who won the first race of the year at Hebden Bridge. In the solo Male class it was Tim Higginbottom who won with 580 points, Bruce Duncan taking 3rd place - just beating Janine with 535 points. He did however crash out on the bike section though so maybe he'll use that as an excuse!

In the mixed pair class it was Team Compasspoints Chris Poole and Karen Heppenstall with 540 points who took victory for the 2nd time this year. It was tightly fought however as they had just a 1 point advantage over Team Accelerates Eddie Winslow and Caroline Bullard who fell foul of being 2 minutes late and had points deducted.

Sarah Noot and Fran Williams had to settle for 3rd spot in the Female pairs class. Following on from their victory in the Pennines in March they scored 455 points, just 15 behind the experienced winners from Team Accelerate, Gill Watson and Debbie Smith.

In the Male pairs class it was once again Team Compasspoint who took victory. Andrew Daley and James Williams scored 535 points to take their 2nd victory of the season, 25 points clear. When combined with a 3rd place in the first race of the season it sees them leading the series overall, as are Chris & Karen in the mixed pairs and Fran & Sarah in the Female pairs.

Full results, details, photos & more over on the Open Adventure Website.