Harlequins Orienteering Club

Octavian Droobers hosted the inter-club West Midlands Relays on Sunday at Pooley Country Park. Results are now available on the OD website here. Harlequins were able to field a total of 11 teams, leading to an impressive density of HOC club tops at the 11 a.m. main mass start. We managed to pick up top spot in 6 of the 8 categories contested, with Juniors performing particularly well. HOC’s trophy winners were: Mixed Ad Hoc: Karen Thompson, Georgina Hudson &…

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HOC had a great day out at South Gare, Redcar in the Compass Sport Cup Final, hosted by Cleveland Orienteering Klub. Our place in the final was earned by the club’s performance in February’s qualifying heat, and the occasion provided a great opportunity to compete together once again as a team on the tricky, and at times energy-sapping, sand dunes next to the North Sea. The team bagged 6th place overall in the Cup competition (for the larger Clubs in…

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Paul Hammond has updated the HOC League standings following the Compass Sport Cup Final at South Gare. An extra event has been added to the West Midlands League which means that we now have 13 qualifying events, so totals are based on your best 7 results. TD1, TD2 and TD3 (White, Yellow, Orange) scores after 8 events. TD4 and TD5 (Light Green, Green, Blue, Brown) scores after 8 events.

We have three 2025 Midlands Champions to celebrate. Derwent Valley Orienteers hosted this year’s championships at Chinley Churn in the Peak District. This area of exposed moorland provided a lot of intricate rocky detail to navigate, along with an abundance of contours, many of them quite close together! Congratulations to our winners Steve Blackmore (M45), Simon Thompson (M60) and Alison Sloman (W85). Photo credit for Alison at the start: Peter Cull

Harlequins fielded four teams at the British Sprint Relay Championships on Saturday 30th August which took place at RAF Honington near Bury St. Edmunds. This made for fast, flat courses with plenty of historic military assets on display, some of which were deployed as control sites. The format calls for mixed gender teams of three (four in the elite classes), with Harlequins’ two Junior teams bagging 6th and 8th places, our Super Veterans 10th and Veterans 19th. The action moved…

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David Williams came back with a haul of podium positions from the 22nd World ARDF Championships which took place from 16th-22nd August in Lithuania. In ARDF, or Amateur Radio Direction Finding (also known as Radio Orienteering or Radio Fox Hunting) competitors use radio direction finding equipment to help them detect the location of a number of transmitters which they must then visit, whilst using map and compass to navigate across the terrain. The four competition events were ‘Classic’ races using 2m and…

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Six club members went to Catalunya, Spain this month representing Harlequins at the 2025 World Master Orienteering Championships. The annual event is open to any orienteer aged 35 and over, with competition spread over a week, and separate Championship events inSprint (held this year in the spectacular host city of Girona), Forest Middle and Forest Long. The leading HOC performance came from Andy Hemsted who placed 4th in the M75 Forest Long Final (Andy has ‘previous’ in this event having…

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Royal Deeside hosted this year’s Scottish 6 Days. Some two dozen HOC members enjoyed high quality terrain, beautiful views and near perfect orienteering weather. Medals were awarded for overall performances in the five forest events with three Harlequins getting onto the podium: Pippa Blackmore, tied 2nd in W14B. Seb Blackmore, who with a win on the last day tied 1st in M14A after a close tussle in the overall standings. Kath Atkins who dominated the week for 1st in the…

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