Last updated 6 February 2008

GO Regional Event - Woolbeding Common - 3 February 08 - Results
Congratulations to the SOUTHERN CHAMPIONS and the OO TROPHY WINNERS

Click here for all results except for string course results.

Planner comments

I was mightily impressed by this terrain when I ran the British here two years ago, and so when organiser Jeremy offered me the chance to plan on Woolbeding it presented a real opportunity. I believe this to be one of the most challenging pieces of terrain in the south of England, and so set out to give you the opportunity to enjoy the best of it. My take on orienteering is that it’s an experience best enjoyed when running through demanding terrain at speed. So my intention was to require you to keep thinking and concentrating – but to allow the best runners to keep moving fast and not to get too bogged down in green forest or in undue detail. And if you managed to take a moment to enjoy the views out from the high ground, then your Woolbeding experience was complete!

It’s a while since I last planned, and I must admit that the plethora of courses, the vagaries of OCAD and the surfeit of guidelines had me reeling. Whilst I naturally tried to take reasonable account of all this (with a good deal of help to make sense of it all from Controller Neil C and OCAD “Meister” Neil H) it seems to me that we have allowed the regulation of our sport to become over-complex. When we can run on a great area such as this, my view is that we should allow ourselves the freedom to set courses to make the most of the possibilities – and not to be too constrained to fit into a particular pre-determined formula.

I’d like to thank Sue and our sons for their support in allowing me the time to take on the planning and to try to do the role to the best of my ability. I’d also ask you to share a thought with us for Sue’s mum Beryl who, but for serious illness, I know would have loved to have been out there, guiding our youngsters round their courses as she has done so often in the past.

Thanks to all our friends in the Guildford team for making the races work so smoothly – it was great working with you all!

Peter Couldery

Controller comments

Two years on from BOC2006 there was a certain amount of nostalgia involved in returning to a forest that I got to know oh so well – it certainly made the controlling process a lot easier. Moving the start onto the Western half of the area allowed those that didn’t get to Woolbeding in 2006 to experience its charms, and securing the use of the hospital provided an excellent venue for assembly (if you ignored the wind chill factor).

Peter was also challenged with coming up with courses that were distinctly different from the BOC courses – a lot of thought went into this which I hope you appreciated. My only real contribution to course planning was to keep dropping hints that it would be nice to have all the starts in the same place and close to assembly. I think that the final forked start solution worked well. There was much discussion about where to place the start kite for the junior courses, having the kite nearer to the start boxes would have resulted in a difficult first leg for the JM/W1 course, which is why we decided to tape competitors to the start kite sited on a nice, obvious path. It became clear though that this caused its own problems – despite being instructed to follow the tapes to the start kite a significant number of competitors assumed that they were at the marked start point when they picked up their maps. Perhaps more surprisingly others crossed the tapes half way along the route to head for a control (with associated picture of Thomas the Tank Engine) half way up an adjacent hill. The ability of competitors to do unorthodox things in the heat of competition never ceases to amaze me.

The courses were certainly physical and perhaps the times for some of the courses were 5-10% too long. If there were any serious problems with the courses no-one felt the need to bring them to my attention and a quick scroll through splitsbrowser didn’t reveal any particularly problematic legs anywhere.

When I first heard that GO were planning to hold a party on the Saturday evening I did wonder whether the organisation would suffer the next day; they were kind enough to invite me to this do which turned out to be a very entertaining evening (thanks Linda) and no sign of hangovers the next day. Jeremy and Alastair marshalled their troops well and either anticipated or calmly coped with everything that the event threw at them.

Neil Crickmore (SO)

Organiser comments

Thanks to our great GO team once again, everything just rolled along like clockwork. We are proud to have brought you such a great area for the Southern Championships, and very grateful for all the kind comments received about the event.

I would single out Peter for planning - what is an event without well-planned courses? - the rest of us just there to add the trimmings on the day. Also Gary, Alastair, Keith and Neil for fantastic support as ever - as well as everyone else who pitched in with great gusto and enthusiasm.

And finally, a big round of applause to our very own star M18 David Abrams who is the M21 Southern Champion, 2008. And that was after a couple of hours of hard graft in the Registration and Download tents, entering all those EODs into the computer system!

Jeremy Wilde

Guildford Orienteers would like to thank the Cowdray Estate for use of their land, and also the National Trust, as well as Mr and Mrs Caulfeild. Special thanks to Lincoln Holdings for their generous response to our request for a car park and assembly area at short notice.