The University of Edinburgh has many sports teams that go to the British University and College Sports Championships every year. The Orienteering team is one of these, and continues to dispatch the opposition on an annual basis, with their recent performance in the BUCS Championships showing the dominant position Edinburgh holds, and has held for many years.
Orienteering – a sport which involves running over rough terrain with only a map and compass for navigation – has several university clubs throughout the country, but Edinburgh is the kingpin, having won BUCS every year now since 2014. They have won a total of nine titles and have been clear favourites for over a decade (no championships were held in 2020 or 2021 due to COVID-19 restrictions). Those familiar with the Sport’s Union (SU) awards will know Orienteering as the club that seems to win an award every year, and this year was no different as the Women’s side were named the SU’s Team of the Year.
The competition itself began on Saturday, March 1 with the individual race at Birchen Edge, a lonely Peak District limestone terrain with open moorland and tough heather underfoot. The men’s winner – running 7.9km in just 41 minutes – was incoming Edinburgh Club Captain and Great Britain international Euan Tryner, ahead of first year student James Hammond. On the women’s side, Edinburgh’s Fiona Bunn came second. An established GB squad member, Bunn has won BUCS Orienteering twice, including the title last year, but this time finished a minute and a half behind Cardiff’s Rachel Duckworth.
The following day saw the team events take place near Carsington Water, where Edinburgh won both the men’s and women’s relays, as they have done every year since 2018. Tryner was pivotal for the men’s team, running with Hammond and 2023 BUCS Individual champion Alex Wetherill. Bunn featured again in the women’s event, winning with Isobel Howard and Rachel Brown.
On paper, Edinburgh’s dominance continues; however, reading between the lines, another story begins to take shape. 2014 winners Sheffield lurk ominously in the wings, with Adam Methven and Jocie Hilton both receiving a podium in the individual event. In the relay, Sheffield came second and third in the men’s and women’s events respectively. Of the six Sheffield orienteers to come back with a medal in either event, four of them are first years, whereas the irreplaceable Fiona Bunn, Rachel Brown and Alex Wetherill are set to graduate before next year’s competition, set to be hosted in Bristol.
This poses the question as to whether Edinburgh’s title defence will be under threat from an up and coming Sheffield side, but for now the Orienteering team can celebrate after what has been a very successful year for the club.
Image credits: Peter Cull