The HOC juniors braved unseasonal wet and cold weather, and slippy conditions underfoot, at Bathpool Park in Kidsgrove on Sunday 15h September to compete in the West Midlands Orienteering Championships, which were hosted this year by POTOC from the pavilion of Kidsgrove Cricket Club.

And congratulations are due all round as they all came back with great results and several mantlepieces will be filling up with trophies as four of our juniors won their events and are WM junior champions for 2024. 

Georgina Hudson was a clear winner in the W10 class, as was her brother Sam in the M12 class. Unfortunately, the W10 trophy wasn’t available for presentation on the day but efforts are underway to locate it, and to get it to Georgina, ASAP.

The Blackmore family also came away with two trophies; one for Pippa Blackmore in the W12 class and the second for her brother Seb in the M14 category.

In the hard fought M16 class, Craig Thompson was second both in the M16 class and overall on the Green course and Peter Blackmore was 4th in M16 and 6th overall on the Green course, which attracted a total entry of 40 runners.

In the M18 class, Kieran Rose came 2nd, coming 11th overall on the Blue Course.