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Performance Corner

Welcome to Performance Corner! This is the section where we highlight performances by our members at relevant events. The primary information source is our own club Personal Performance System, where we compare individual performances at certain nominated Performance Events against current Ranking Points. This simple system enables us to highlight strong performances across all ages and abilities. In addition, we provide notice and information of club performances at major events such as BOC, JK and multi-day events at home and abroad.

Details of our club Personal Performance System can be found here.

We provide notice of event performances by email to those members who join our specific mailing list for these items. If you would like to be included on our reviews of events, please email performance@bko.org.uk and keep in touch with how you and your colleagues are performing!.

We also keep historical performance reports for previous seasons. Click here to go to the performance history.


Tough BOC produces BKO Champion!

It was a tough BOC long weekend in the Surrey Hills and in Dorking. The heavily contoured terrrain with much bilberry and brashings made it heavy going for most BKO club members, The Relay day was even tougher than the Individual, and the Dorking Urban Race used up any spare energy on Monday. Despite this, the club now has its first National class champion for many years. Ian Cooper ran hard and well to win the M70 class, a close-run affair, thus reversing his 2nd place in the JK. It is great to see Ian gain this success, as he has been our best orienteer for many years.

Other significant Individual day results included Anna Methven with an excellent 2nd place in W10B, and brother Adam Methven's 5th in M10B. It is good to see our new Juniors competing at this level so well. Amongst the Seniors, David Jukes reached 24th place in M60L, and Janet Gibson was her usual reliable self in gaining 5th in W70L. Peter Bennett gained 16th place  in M70L.

We provided six Relay teams on Sunday, another good turnout. In particular, we fielded our first M/W12s Mini-Relay team for many years. Well done to Oliver Smith, Daniel Smith and Charlie Betts for performing so well. But for an unfortunate missed control, it looks like they might have finished near the top of their class. Let's hope they can compete again together in next year's Championship events, developing their potential as BKOfuture. In the large M60 class with an entry of 31 teams. our mature 'rock stars' David Jukes, Martin Wilson and Ian Cooper, running for the first time together as team BKOntenders, put in a storming performance to finish 2nd overall for the Silver medal.  David pulled a muscle shortly after starting on first leg, yet still managed to finish a highly credible 6th place, giving his all for the team. Martin then had a powerful, reasonably clean run, and was able to hand over to Ian in 1st place. Ian was only overtaken by the BOC M60 Champion, and held on to second place for a superb club result. Well done, lads!

                                                                                      

                                                 BKOntenders (Ian, David, Martin) on the M60 podium at the BOC Relays

BKOntenders (Ian, David, Martin)  on the M60 podium at the BOC Relays

 On Monday, the Dorking Urban Race had a huge entry of over 900 competitors. Against this extent of competition, it was tough to get good results. Our best scores were Martin Wilson with a 1st in Men's UltraVets, Richard Rae with 18th in the same class, and Gill Godbold with 29th in Women's SuperVets. There were one or two no-shows from BKO pre-entries, which perhaps reflected the toughness of the total weekend.

Overall, it was a great Championship weekend, very well organised, and the tough courses tested everyone's skills and stamina throughout.

  

 

Hard going at BOC Sprints and MD

A healthy contingent of BKO travellers made it to Loughborough for the BOC Sprints, and most went on to Matlock for BOC Middle on Sunday. These events provided very tough competition against the best in the UK. At the Sprints, just four BKO members made it through to their A final.

BKO at SCOA MIddle Champs

A handy turnout of BKO members at the SCOA Middle Distance Championships at Oxshott today brought successes, with the club gaining its fair share of Championship Awards. Congratulations go to the following medallists:

M65+:    GOLD       Ian Cooper

BKO successes at JK2013

This year, the ‘local’ JK2013 brought out a large contingent of BKO members, with everyone acting as helpers on most days, squeezing in a very early or very late run. In the circumstances, it was difficult for everyone to give of their best throughout the competition. But successes there were, and plenty of noteworthy performances.

BKO Successes at Midland Champs

The BKO presence at the Midland Champs in Sherwood Forest was small, but certainly made an impact. Ian Cooper, running in his first Championship event in M70, won his class by over 5 minutes, a great achievement. Ian must now have an excellent chance in the forthcoming BOC and JK events in the spring. We wish him well.

Uphill struggles at Croeso

A strong contingent of 11 BKO members took part in Croeso 2012, based at Aberystwyth in mid-Wales. Some members tackled all six days, some did fewer days. The event had four Long days, all on steep and rough open moorland, one Middle Distance – the only day to use trees at all – and one Urban race round the campus of Aberystwyth University, a notable first for a UK six-day event.

Strong BKO Performances at WMOC

Three BKO members made the long journey to Bad Harzburg in Germany for this year’s World Masters O Championships (WMOC), one of the largest ever, with 4,300 competitors – probably due to the event’s close proximity to Scandinavia. With such a large field, it is hard to measure success, but just to finish in a reasonable Final and get round all five days of competition was a major achievement in itself.

PPS Scores for Event 8: BKO Event 13/5/12

It was another good turnout of club members at our own Swinley East event on Sunday, which was to be expected. A fine day certainly brought out the visitors in droves. I believe we had over 450 entries, with over 100 of them entering on the Friday before the event. There were entries from WAOC, OD, WIM and other distant clubs. Like our Autumn Regional event at Hawley, there was no other equivalent event close, which helped to boost the numbers further. Who says orienteers aren’t addicts?

 

VHI Selection for Martin Wilson

Martin Wilson has been selected to represent Scotland at M65 in the Veterans Home Internationals to be held in Northern Ireland on June 15/16. Martin has been competing in most of the major championship events this year, and has managed consistent results (4th or 5th) on each occasion. His 5th place in the BOC Long Championships in the Lake District last weekend ensured his selection.

PPS Scores for Event 7: TVOC Event 15/4/12

Two weeks ago when I mailed to say that the Chiltern Challenge would now be Performance Event 7 we had about 10 pre-entries in the event. On the day, we had over 50 BKO competitors, a fantastic turnout. Pure co-incidence, or are people secretly chasing PPS scores and League placings? I sincerely hope so!

 

JK Stage Win for Janet Gibson

Congratulations to Janet Gibson for her exciting stage win in W70 on Day 3 of the JK at Craig a' Barns in Perthshire! Janet made fewer mistakes than her main competitors in the very technical terrain, and held on well over the closing section to maintain her lead. This win helped Janet to finish in 4th position overall over the two Long Distance days, an excellent result.

PPS Scores for Event 6: BADO Event 1/4/12

We had a very high turnout of 43 senior members competing at the BADO event on Sunday, everybody, which is excellent to see. Not being there myself, I can’t comment on the event itself, but it was certainly a lovely day! 

PPS Scores for Event 5: GO Event 4/03/12

It was another relatively small turnout of BKO members at the GO event recently. We had no Improvers at all taking part, which is slightly surprising. I hope you all found it a good occasion, despite the poor weather. The PPS scores seem quite high, with half the scorers gaining over 97%, thus helping their ranking total. That’s good to see.

BKO successes at BNC and SCOA Championships

BKO posted many successful performances at the British Night Championships and SCOA Championships held last weekend at Hamptworth. In the BNC, Ian Hudson was the winner in M60S, a very commendable result, so many congratulations to Ian. Night O is never easy.

PPS Scores for Event 4: SCOA Champs SARUM 26/2/12

A double event at Hamptworth last weekend, everybody, with the British Night Championships on the Saturday evening. The PPS scores attached here only refer to the SCOA Championships on the Sunday. We had just 13 BKO starters for this event, a surprisingly small total. The forest was an interesting mix of runnable woodland and man-eating rhodo patches. It was certainly best to stay in the white terrain wherever possible!

 

PPS Scores for Event 3: CS Cup TVOC 19/02/12

Well, that was the CompassSport Cup that was, everyone, over for another year. We had 28 starters, scored almost as well as we could, but were well behind the major clubs with larger turnouts. At least we don’t have to traipse all the way to the Borders in September. Perhaps we should focus on 2014, when the CS Final will apparently be held in the SCOA region!

 

PPS Scores for Event 2: BKO 29/01/12

Everyone, it was a very impressive day’s orienteering today, topped with results and Routegadget posted by 6 pm, and Ranking Points available on the BO website by early evening, so well done to all the organising team. This has forced me to move fast to calculate the PPS scores, made more complex by the many new BKO member runners on the day. We had 55 ranking scorers overall, our largest ever total, including five who had no previous ranking scores at all. This was a great turnout.

 

PPS Scores for Event 1: HH & NWO 22/01/12

The results of our Spring season's first PPS day are provided here. I’ve made a retrospective decision to include results from the NWO West Woods event as well as the HH results. Firstly, this gives more results for the overall day, and secondly it tests out one idea I wanted to try, of having multiple counting events on one day. Thus last Sunday has now become a ‘Performance Day’. I’ll bet that any low scorers now wish they’d gone to the other event!

PPS Scoring Modifications for Spring 2012

Hi everybody. I have been reviewing the PPS scoring system following last season’s successful trial, and I am making two modifications and adding one further facility. I attach a rather lengthy document giving more background to the changes, but the main points are given below.

 

Performance Event 6: SOC 11/12/11: PPS Scores

Hi again everybody. After last Sunday’s SOC event, the last Performance Event of our Autumn season, I have only now been able to calculate the PPS scores, as SOC were unusually slow in forwarding the results to the BO Ranking System. However, I now have the calculations. We had a very small turnout of only 11 members, and the whole event seemed much smaller than most SOC events. I suspect most people were put off by an unfavourable weather forecast, but it did in fact stay dry most of the morning.

 

Performance Event 5: BADO Regional Event 20/11/11: PPS Scores

PPS scores for the Pamber event on Sunday are now available. We had a very large turnout of more than 50 members at the event, with several juniors, which was excellent, presumably with many turning out in the hope of gaining a good performance in our own Club Championship event. While there were some good results, we also saw quite a large number of retirals, which was a disappointment. The forest was not particularly technical, with plenty of catching features, but the map did contain a great deal of detail, and it was easy to become confused. Many controls in depressions were hung very low, making it difficult to spot the kite from even 10m away.

 

Performance Event 4: SOC Regional 06/11/11: PPS Scores

The November Classic on Sunday was our fourth Performance Event, and what a great event it was. With bright sunshine, a beautiful runnable beech forest with few major paths, and genuine long course planning, it was about as good as it gets in the South of England. The club had 28 runners on the day, with a further 9 who had entered but were unable to compete. There was a very large turnout at the event, approaching 900 competitors in total, with a full 180 on the Blue course.

 

Performance Event 3: TVOC 22/10/11: PPS Scores

The club had a strong presence at the TVOC event on Sunday. We had 35 senior (age 16+) members competing, plus 2 juniors on White and 3 on Yellow, which was a great turnout. Was the thought of gaining a PPS score too tempting to miss?! It looks like ranking points were harder to get this time than at the Hawley event. Our more regular competitors were not so close to their average on this occasion, and it’s the improvers amongst our newer members who have reached the podium.

UK Masters Cup: 4th for Janet, 5th for Richard, 8th for Martin

The 2011 Masters Cup competition reached its conclusion with the Cambridge City Race on 22nd October. Janet Gibson gained an excellent 4th in W70 overall, Richard Rae 5th in M65, and Martin Wilson 8th in M60. Well done to these regular competitors for completing this marathon competition of 16 events over the past ten months, with the best eight scores to count. After the event, we caught up with our heroes and asked their views on this new competition:

Performance Event 2: BKO Regional 25/09/11: PPS Scores

PPS scores for our event at Hawley on Sunday are now available. They provide some interesting reading. We had 31 senior club members who ran at the event. Of these, 21 obtained a PPS score as they already had three counting ranking point scores, which is our minimal qualification. Another eight members ran and obtained RPs, but had less than the required minimum number of previous scores to count. For this latter group, their RPs and the count of their previous runs are in the spreadsheet. I hope these newer and more occasional runners will come again to future events and will soon be integrated within PPS.

 

Performance Event 1: SOC Regional 11/09/11: PPS Scores

Hello again, everyone, and welcome to the new O season. You will have seen in the recent Newsletter that we have now formalised the Rankings Performance System we trialled during the spring, and it has now become the BKO Personal Performance System.  The principle remains as before, to encourage visibility of good performances whatever your standard, and hopefully encourage us all to compete at more events.

Personal Performance System Trial: Spring 2011

BKO has been trialling a new Personal Performance System at selected events throughout 2011 Spring to compare relative performances of club members aganst their BO Ranking Points. The results of the trial are available at http://www.bko.org.uk/performance/2011/09/26/pps-trial-spring-2011-results.