Fantastic results for CU Orienteering Club at the annual BUCS event last weekend!

Weekend highlights included a silver individual medal for UCAPP athlete, Peter Molloy, silver medals for the men's relay team, and a 2nd place finish overall for CUOC. Full report written by CU Orienteering President,  Sarah Pedley.

"BUCS on EUOC's home terrain - a challenging prospect - but 18 intrepid CUOCers made the journey up to compete! Well I say that, it was also sort of home terrain for Peter and James, so no 5 hour train journey for them, but everyone else set out on Friday away from the flatlands of Cambridge.

CUOC performed well, though this might have been helped by the surprising similarity of this area to East-Anglian block forest... Just with contours! Highlight results have to be from the Men's side - Peter storming to an impressive 2nd in 56 minutes, with James only 3.5 mins behind in 7th and Olly close behind in 12th. Further CUOC results were Dom in 18th, Alexander in 59th, Matej in 60th, Tom in 65th, Adam in 66th, Charlie in 73rd, and Kevin in 80th. Nam also came 14th on the B!

Onto the Women's side! No dizzy heights of podium positions here, and a mistake from yours truly denied us a top 10, but the team put out a strong result nonetheless with Sarah in 14th, Sophie in 29th, Anna in 33rd and Chloe in 38th. Sophie also picked up a prize for 2nd best newcomer to orienteering - so major congratulations is due there! Newcomers Lena and Anna were on the C course and both did well too, coming 4th and 7th!

More importantly, much fun was had by all most! (a few grumbles of the utter manky-ness of Beecraigs did remain from those who have experienced more attractive Scottish forests, it must be said).

Sunday dawned - relay day. By 9:30am one captain was at the airport to fly out for a mandatory geography field trip and the other captain was incapacitated by an allergic reaction (oops), so things weren't looking good. But with Alexander's medic skills and stash of anti-histamines, alongside CUOC members eagerness to not let me carry any bags, we all made it safe and well to the event!

Destination was North Pentlands; based from Dreghorn barracks, which gave the added excitement of people on military training exercises passing by the Assembly... With massive guns... Blanks though, I was assured, and they weren't shooting them round us anyway (thankfully!). Men's relay were first up, and we cheered Olly, Matej, and Tom as they sped off up into the hills. Closely following were Sophie and Anna on 1st leg in the Women's relay, and finally Charlie on the Adhoc. Some great results again, with the dream team of Olly, James, and Peter finishing in 2nd! All the other CUOCers made it round too - successfully descending the steepest slope I have ever been down in my life! Suffice to say, the tactic of sliding on your bum was deemed the best method! Notable CUOC performances included James and Peter, who both had absolute stormers, alongside Tom who had an amazing run - making good use of his fell running credentials! Our women's 1st team also put out a solid performance, coming 9th, and everyone found all the controls and had a lot of fun - which, in my opinion, counts it as a successful event!

And, drum roll please... We came 2nd overall!!!! 

Prizes were given and CUOCers then dispersed via train to various places around the UK, most likely with tired legs if they're anything like me. Hopefully the 2 weeks until Varsity will give plenty of time to recover and then we can beat Oxford again!"