Fabulous win for Scottish JuniorsThe JHI's, middle and SOL 6 were held last weekend

The winning team - Scotland!
Credit: SM

The JHI's, middle and SOL 6 were held last weekend at Loch Vaa and Creag Dhubh

What an amazing weekend! EckO was well represented in both the JHI's (Ward Junior Home Internationals), Middle and SOL 6. Both the areas chosen were extremely challenging technically and physically but the juniors appeared to fly over the terrain.

The relays took place first on the Saturday at Loch Vaa, with a middle distance race for spectators, both organised by Interlopers. Huge congratulations to EckO members Iris Macmillan and Ruari Cottier who ran for team Scotland. For a full report of the weekend please read Judy Bell's report on the SOA website https://www.scottish-orienteer...

After the relays, Scotland was lying in second place to England so a lot rested on individual performances at Creag Dhubh.

Other EckO members had lots of fun at Loch Vaa with varying degrees of success and frustration. At least the sun was shining! Finlay Cottier had a good solid run coming second on light green.

The forecast for Creag Dhubh at Newtonmore was looking pretty grim but fortunately the rain held off and a great day was had by all. There was a 2.4km walk in to the start which was very useful to warm up tired muscles. Interestingly, it did involve a near vertical climb up a short muddy bank which added to the interest. Iris and Ruari had great runs with Iris coming in 1st W18 and Ruari 6th M14 helping Scotland to win the overall title.

The SOL 6 started after the JHI individual races were under way. Again Finlay Cottier had a good run coming 2nd in Light Green. Finlo had a great run given the terrain, coming 3rd on Short Green. Gill, Liz and Bill successfully navigated their way around their courses whilst Jan managed to forget all she knew about orienteering strategies and spend a lot of time wandering purposefully around. So frustrating but that's the draw of orienteering. Next time...

EckO would like to sincerely thank all the planners, organisers, controllers and volunteers from Interlopers and BASOC for the huge effort involved over the weekend. We would also like to thank the coaches and volunteers who are so committed to the development of the Scottish Juniors. The results speak for themselves.