ORIENTEERING: Octavian Droobers are West Midlands champions

After the final league match, of the series of 11, against other West Midland Clubs, Octavian Droobers were crowned winners with a score of 7,283 points, well ahead of Harlequins 6,382, Walton Chasers 6,435 and Wrekin 6,203. The individual club scores were reached by the best five results of the top performing club members across all ages.

Scoring the maximum 50 points and winning their age group at 5 events, were Max Straube-Roth, Florence Lunn W14, Barry Elkington M60 and Sheila Carey W70. Anne Straube W40 scored 499, Matt Bambrook M14 and Lesley Ross W50 both scored 498. Other scores: Tom Jeffries M45 494, Sam Leadley M18 492, Bruce Bryant M60 491, Peter Carey M70 491, Liz Phillips W50 489, Rob Bambrook M45 476, David Leadley M50 456 and Alistair Landels M50 399. Full results are on www.wmoa.org.

The annual Christmas Relays were held again at Rough Close Scout Camp, Tile Hill, Coventry. Several club members ran all four legs to great success and Matt Elkington M21 was declared the winner after taking 1 hour 26.25mins just 17 seconds ahead of Will Gardner M21. Third place went to Felix and Oliver Lunn M16 who ran 2 legs each.

The annual Interland match against selected European countries will take place in 2019 at the Saint Michel forest in the foothills of the Ardennes in France on 10 March. Congratulations to Lesley Ross W50 who will be representing England at this event. Duncan Birtwistle M21 and Anne Straube W40 are first reserves in their classes.

At Martinshaw Woods, near Leicester, Will Gardner M21 was the top runner taking 54.13mins to run the 9.9km course with 120 metres of climb, through the National Forest. Lesley Ross W50 was 4th and took 60.26mins on the 7.3km course just beating brother Andrew Simpson M50 into 5th place in 60.37mins. Margaret Willdig W65 was 3rd on the Short Green 4.2km course in 54.06mins and Joanne Leigh was 3rd on the Orange 3.6km course in 60.22mins.