Quantock Long O 2003 on the Quantocks - 12 Oct 2003

Many thanks for all of you for coming and making the event a great success. I hope you all enjoyed your courses and those of you that regrettably did retire did so for reasons of fatigue or excessive time rather than for dissatisfaction with the courses chosen. Our regular participants will know that this was my first year planning and organising the event following Arthur Vince’s retirement from the post, which he held, with great respect, for the previous five years. From the positive comments I received on the day, I feel I managed to achieve the same level of physical and mental challenge that has prevailed in previous years’ events.

From the outset, my aim was to provide an event somewhat akin to a stage of a mountain marathon (as many participants use this as a final training event before the KIMM), offering long legs over mixed terrain with multiple route choice wherever possible. In this event, the straight-line route, particularly considering this year’s excessive vegetation growth, is not always the best option.

I had envisaged a winning time on long to be well above 4 hours. As it happened that was shattered by Ifor Powell’s’ stunning time of 3:31. For the medium course, I expected about 3-3.5 hours, which turned out to be correct, with Pete Maliphant’s deserved win after a very last minute entry. It was pleasing to see the many female competitors achieving high overall positions, and congratulations to Mel Hawker and Alison High as first females in long and medium, and Liz Godfree as overall aggregate winner based on BOF handicap ratio for time taken over 14Km distance. I’m sorry the trophy presentation was delayed by late finishers, and will forward outstanding trophies this week.

The short course was put on this year as an experiment to both try out our new electronic punching system, and to offer some orienteers the feel of a long O without the excessive distance. As it turned out, take up was quite poor, so will have to be reviewed next year.

Lastly, many thanks to all my helpers, both in and out of the hall. Thanks to Christine’s and Lennox’s catering which raised £45 profit (this will be donated to the SW Junior squad), to Trevor for controlling admirably once again, Roger and Judy at the start/finish, Kevan for his lonely vigil at the map change, the excellent weather conditions and to you all for your efforts. Next year, a different venue, electronic punching, and a possible change in format…

Andy Rimes

First an apology regarding control 282. Two or three people commented to me that the control was misplaced, and I was, perhaps, a little dismissive having spent a considerable amount of time in that area checking that site. What I obviously hadn’t spent enough time on was checking the final competition maps against the planner’s draft. There can be no excuses, so I can only apologise and say that I hope my mistake didn’t spoil your enjoyment of the event. Such was the margin of victory in both races, that I don’t believe either winner would have been beaten and, in the spirit of this particular event, I intend letting the results stand.

After many years of Arthur’s Long O, Andy has taken the mantle of planner, and I think you will agree that he has carried on the tradition of a testing event. I think that he judged the length of the courses accurately, Ivor’s gallop around the Long Course being the exception which proves the rule. The undergrowth was a little unfriendly, but if you think that was long, you should have seen it during the heat wave in mid July when I first checked control sites- uncomfortable would be the mildest word I would use to describe the conditions!

Finally a word of thanks to the helpers. As you will have noticed, this event is run with a minimum of staff, and it tends to be the same people each year. Without them giving up their day, there would be no event.

Trevor Griffiths