JK Relay – drizzle and statistics – Border Liners Orienteering Club

After three days of good weather, the JK Relay day was damp and drizzly, with later started getting the worst of the rain. Middleton Park in Leeds was the venue – it provided an excellent change-over area but the orienteering lacked technical challenge, especially on shorter courses. Most courses had an arena run-through part way round and while this made it more exciting for spectators, competitors tired after three days of orienteering weren’t always appreciative.

The JK Relay uses a age class system based on the total age of a team rather than specifying the ages of each team member. This makes it easier for small clubs such as BL to have competitive teams, but for the team manager juggling all the possible combinations, it can be something of a headache.

Such was the situation in the Ultravets M/W 210+ class where BL had 3 teams. A quick calculation suggests that there are over a hundred thousand permutations of 9 people into three teams (though admittedly some of them wouldn’t make the 210 age total) . So team manager Andy did well to create a medal winning team, with Keith, Christine and him coming third. The second team was close behind in fifth place, and the third unfortunately had a mis-punch, but would otherwise have been well placed.