British Orienteering Successes in Portugal

The last 10 days saw several British orienteers optimistic of some winter sun travel to Portugal for a racing and training camp. The weekend of the 17th-18th of February was the 4-day Portugal O Meeting (POM). Unfortunately the weather was very mixed – fog, snow, hail, rain, wind and even a bit of sunshine and a very tough field of competitors (180 in the Men´s Elite with half of the top 100 in the world running) saw limited British success. The terrain was incredibly rocky with extremely detailed maps. Top British Results at POM: Under 13 Girls 1st Florence Haines AIRE Under 21 Boys B 3rd Michael May SLOWUnder 21 Girls 1st Victoria Stevens AIRE, 3rd Chloe Haines AIRE Men 21 Elite 3rd Oli Johnson SYO Women 21 A 3rd Alison High SO Men 50+ 3rd James Crawford GO Women 50+ 2nd Sue Stevens AIRE Women 55+ 4th Jill Gorvett SYO POM results in full http://www.pom2007.com/resultados.asp The second weekend of racing at the Norte Alentajano O Meeting (NAOM) saw much better results from the British contingent. There were podium finishes from Brits in every race including the Elite Mens and Womens. The terrain was less rocky than at POM but still highly intricate with excellent mapping and a vast improvement in the weather. The first day of NAOM was a World Ranking Event for the elites producing the following results: Women 21 Elite 1st Maria Rantala Finland 61.15 5th Jenny Johnson SYO 67.52 6th Laura Daniel SYO 69.56 9th Lizzie Adams ShUOC 73.26 10th Aislinn Austin CLOK 74.41 12th Jo Stevenson 74.51 Men 21 Elite 1st Anders Nordberg Norway 75.35 3rd Oli Johnson SYO 76.58 13th Neil Northrop SYO 84.21 17th Rob Baker 86.47 That evening there was a Night Sprint around the city of Nisa with a fantastic atmosphere provided by the organisers and again some great results: Women 21 Elite 1st Aislinn Austin CLOK 18.38 4th Clare leventon SYO 18.46 5th Laura Daniel SYO 18.55 6th Jenny Johnson SYO 18.58 7th Jo Stevenson SYO 19.00 12th Lizzie Adams ShUOC 19.31 19th Jane Forrest SYO 23.19 Men 21 Elite 3rd Neil Northrop SYO 15.47 4th Mike Sprot 16.01 7th Oli Johnson SYO 16.34 Men 45+ 2nd Eddie Harwood Moravian OC Men 60+ 2nd Pete Gorvett SYO 18.24 The overall results for the weekend saw 8 British medal winners – 6 from the South Yorkshire Orienteers Club Full result list from NAOM http://www.gd4caminhos.com/content/view/318/231/

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