Harris Attracts Military and Civilian Hordes to Sidbury!
Glorious winter sunshine brought many military and civilian orienteers to Sidbury Hill, Tidworth to run in the Military League South (MLS) Team Harris Orienteering Championships Tidworth on Wed. 24th Feb. The event was organised by Cpt. Jason Patt and a small team from 19 Regiment RA, with Sarum’s Liz Yeadon planning and Charlotte Thornton controlling; a fine instance of cooperation between military and civilian orienteering.
The Team Harris format event offered long (4.1km) or short (3.5km) courses for teams of three. For anyone not familiar with this format, each team member has to visit all of a set of compulsory spine controls; an additional set of secondary controls must all be visited by at least one member of the team. The team time is determined by the time of the last person in the team to finish, plus any added time penalties for missed controls. For the Planner, the challenge was to make the competitors think about their route choices, including the climb of Sidbury Hill itself.
A total of 66, mainly military, teams, took part in the event. These comprised a good mix of veteran, female and under-25 orienteers, and civilian competitors entered as guests in the Ad Hoc Teams on the Long or Short courses. The winning team on the Long Course which was from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst included Sarum’s very own Rob Ashton.
WO1 Stu Greening, the Secretary of Military League (UK South) Orienteering, said “Orienteering is one of the key basic skills that every soldier and officer should possess. If you can orienteer using a compass and small 1:10,000 scale map, in a competitive arena, and do this on a regular basis, it will give individuals confidence in their navigational skills and become almost second nature. It also pays dividends in military development and translates directly to any operational environment.”
Everyone went home happy; some more tired than others.
