The 2026 CompassSport Cup Heat in Sutton Park
The CompassSport Cup is the only inter-club competition in UK orienteering, and takes place annually. The regional heats are in early spring, with the Final normally in October. Birmingham’s Sutton Park was most definitely showing signs of spring on Sunday!
DVO entered a team of 48 runners, and purchased a new Club tent for the occasion. Hugh Grant’s agent said he was unavailable, so Jane our Chairman stepped up for the opening ceremony [joke by Lester Evans]! Seven clubs were competing in the Cup competition, and we had to finish in the top three to qualify for the Final.
CompassSport Cup age classes are complicated, and evolving to include the ageing orienteering population, with a new class being added some years ago for M80+ and W70+. This is Course 8, and our scorers were Doug Dickinson (100 points) just 15 seconds ahead of OD’s Pete Carey, Judith Evans (92 points), Dave Skidmore, Ruth Ellis, Jen Gale and Christine Middleton.
At the other end of the age spectrum, on Course 10 for MW14–, our runners Jonah and Alice scored 186 points between them, with Alice finishing 37 seconds ahead of NOC’s Grace Robinson to win her class. A great run from Ben too, scoring 82 points. And here’s their tricky course!
On Course 9 for W14–18, Imogen and Jessica scored a whopping 198 points, here’s Jess on the run-in.
We had two runners in Course 1 – Men’s Open, 8.5km – Andrew Powell (93 points) and Austin Rolland (81 points). Well done to both of them, the winner in this class was GB international OD’s Nathan Lawson, who cut his teeth in DVO!
On Course 2 for M45–55, we had five runners, returnee from Lithuania Andis Ozols scoring 86 points, closely followed by unicyclist Tom from the Download Team (84 points). Other contributors were David Newton, Dave Chaffey and Rob Williams.
On Course 3 – Women’s Open, 6.6km – Helen Chiswell contributed 96 points, followed by Sal Chaffey (91) and Nicola Hart (88).
Course 4 – M55–65, 5.4km – was another strong class, with Richard Parkin and John Duckworth in 2nd and 3rd place behind OD’s Alistair Landels, scoring 99 and 98 points. Darren Cook was not far behind, contributing 86 points. Dai Bedwell, James Prince, David Clough and Gary Kelsall helped by nudging other clubs’ runners down the points ladder.
Course 5 – W45–60, 4.5km – had a team of five athletes, with Michelle Mackervoy scoring 95 points, followed home by Kim Buxton, Katie Swalwell, Karen Bedwell and Emily Williams. The run-in camera (aka Dave Chaffey) didn’t manage to snap any of them, but the lady who did our group shot captured Karen and Kim (left) and Michelle and Katie (right).
Course 6 – M65–80 – had top scorers David Vincent (95) and Graham Johnson (94) helped by Paul Goodhead, Russ Buxton and John Hurley. Graham and Russ discuss routes with Sue below.
Course 7 – M75–80 and W60–70 – is the class that was split a few years ago, and had nine runners. Ann-Marie Duckworth scored 97 points, with Stuart Swalwell and John Hopper not far behind (92 and 90). They were followed home by Sue Russell, Jane Kayley-Burgess, Rex Bleakman, Anne Kayley-Burgess, Derek Gale and Cathy Goodhead – Rex and Derek both M80s and running up a class.
The “geeking session” at our Open Meeting the previous Wednesday obviously paid off, with ten people having runs scoring 90+ points, of whom Doug, Immie and Alice scored the full 100! Well done all, thanks to Sally for doing the entries … and we look forward to the Final in Pippingford Park in Sussex on October 18th!
Scoring analysis
Twenty-five scorers from each Club count, and the counters’ points are shown in bold in the Results. The points stack up as below, but remember, even if your score doesn’t count, your run still nudges potential counting scorers from other clubs down a point or two! With just 3 points separating the top 3 clubs, every runner is important!
Thanks to Octavian Droobers for a great day out in Sutton Park!
