Well done to everyone competing in Saturday's Spar Lancashire Youth Games in Blackpool's Stanley Park. Fantastic occasion, lots of special events and many closely fought sporting battles. See link for provisional results by course. Amalgamated ultrasprint scores as used to calculate team results are included for round 1 and will follow asap for round 2.
Considerable thanks are due to my team of volunteers who performed well beyond the normal call of duty to deliver a first-class orienteering competition. Ok we started a bit late due to circumstances outside our control with the overrunning opening ceremony and this led to a couple of other delays, however we caught back that time and finished bang on the original schedule with the medallists lining up ahead of time in our allocated presentation slot. Many favourable comments suggest participants enjoyed the races and there was an excited buzz among the leading teams while in the tunnel awaiting the presentation.
Many of you were caught out by the complexities of the labyrinth in round 1; many succeeded. After re-thinking your strategies many more succeeded at the second attempt on different courses. Then after the break there were many excellent results in the park race.
For those absent from the event, participants had to do 2 ultrasprint score-type races and a park race. The ultrasprints involved navigating round a complex layout of barriers to find 10 controls. But with 3 courses being run simultaneously, 30 controls in the 30m x 30m arena, penalties for visiting wrong ones and a packed grandstand watching it wasn't easy. The park race was a traditional orienteering sprint race round Stanley Park finishing on the running track.
When all the scores were totalled we were left with a very close result and it was Lancaster, Rossendale and Chorley that stepped on to the stage to a musical introduction in a very professional medal ceremony.
Let's hope the many inexperienced orienteers enjoyed their day and take advantage of the frequent opportunities to try competitive orienteering throughout the county and beyond.

Steve McLean

Orienteering Event Organiser Spar Lancashire Youth Games.