Moravian Orienteers Junior Section wrote a new chapter in their success story at the weekend. A team of 10 young runners travelled through to the Aberdeen area to represent North District in the 2-day Scottish Inter-Area Junior Championships.
This competition is when the best juniors from the North Clubs in Highland, Moray, Aberdeenshire and Royal Deeside join together to run against similar squads from the West and East Districts. This is the first year that Moravian have had a strong enough junior section to enter competitors, but the club's debut was one to remember.
The Saturday event was a team relay where the North team triumphed thanks partly to two storming runs from Ashleigh Howells and Andrew Barr. However it was Sunday's individual races that produced the best set of junior results from a Moravian team for as long as anyone could remember.
The superb form of Forres Academy S1 pupil Andrew Barr had made him one of the pre-race favourites for the Under 15 Boys race. His third place in the previous weekend's Scottish Championships had proved the Dyke youngster's calibre, and he certainly didn't disappoint. Despite a careless navigational slip mid way through the 3.6 Km course, Andrew recovered well to edge out Stirling's Daniel Stansfield by 20 seconds to achieve his second consecutive victory in a Scottish League race. But the good news didn't stop there. Forres team-mate Johnstone MacPherson-Stewart used his scorching pace to great effect. Taking it steady but accurately in the vital early stages of the race, Johnstone gradually gathered speed to overtake Barr at one stage before a better route choice opened up a 50 second gap for his younger team mate. Nevertheless, a fine 3rd place put North district in pole position. Barr has recently been selected to be one of only 4 under 15s to represent Scotland In the National Inter-Area event in South Wales on 26 June. He becomes the first Moray orienteer since Andrew Rogan, son of the well-known Forres Harrier Paul Rogan, to represent his country.
Things went from good to better when it came to the girls races. Moravian had 3 girls entered in the youngest female class, and what a performance it was from them! Ashleigh Howells from Kinloss fairly flew round the 2.3 Km course to win the race for the North, but hard on her heels in 2nd was Bishopmill Primary's Lauryn McWilliam who made it a club 1-2 for the North team. This helped the North to take the overall trophy.
Another remarkable result was from 14-year-old Alana Young from Elgin who was running in the Under 15 girls' race. Alana is still finding her feet in the sport, but was determined to tackle the course, set at a technical standard 2 levels above what she was used to. Competing in an orienteering race at this level would normally be beyond the capabilities of most 14 year olds without significant coaching behind them. Despite a fairly slow time, the Elgin Academy teenager managed to navigate successfully the whole way round, putting her above the many disqualified runners who couldn't cope quite so well - a terrific performance of which she was justifiably very pleased.