The Victorious Scotland team

A spectacular pair of days in the Senior Home Internationals brought Scotland home with a comfortable score to defend their title following two races held locally by Forth Valley Orienteers.

The Scotland men were first out of the blocks in the Individual race at Lochearnhead, and onto the scoresheet, as they claimed the top three places in M21, including a bronze for Graham Gristwood (95.17), and this combined with another M20 victory through James Hammond (64.70) to post an overall two point gain from the men's courses. on a day that should have had a bigger reward for the host nation, such was their dominance.

The Scottish W20s blew the competition away, with another full podium, and although Megan Carter-Davies won the W21 course (77.49) for Wales, Grace Molloy was just over a minute back in 2nd, and a 3rd place finish from Jo Shepherd meant that the Scots won this classification too. by an identical two point margin.

England's only real chance in the second day's relay at Callander Crags was to win both races and hope that Scotland didn't manage to get on the podium. These hopes quickly turned to ash, as Scotland 2, which featured Graham in its lineup, posted the quickest closing leg split to turn a 33 second deficit into a dramatic eight second victory, and 3rd for Scotland 1, with James on the middle leg, piled more pressure on the competition.

It was all now down to the women's relay, with Scotland needing only to get one of their three teams into the top four. There was no last-minute excitement, other than a victory parade for Scotland, as they went 1-2-3 in the class, Grace anchoring Scotland 1 to a two minute margin in the end, and the best placed non Scottish team some six minutes off the pace.

The major success of the weekend didn't stop with the international match, as 17 club athletes posted podium finishes, including six of the 12 course wins in the underlying Scottish League races.

Roger Goddard got his work done early before taking over as organiser for the second day, as he won on the Brown course in 82.59, with Steve Feltbower 3rd (85.52). On the Short Brown version, there was a club 1-2, with Yotam Bertrand tops in 74.07, ahead of Jason Inman (76.12) and on the Blue course, Scarlett Kelly once again ran out of class to finish as the top woman (62.09).

Beccy Osborn was 3rd on Short Blue (70.14) and Nicola Melville went one place better on Short Green (62.28). The Very Short Green HyperVet course is a new addition this year, and Liz Godfree continued her fine form since moving from DVO, with 2nd behind a young, out-of-class athlete (53.09) as Lindsey Hensman (57.53) was 3rd.

The juniors were also in fine form, and Fraser Cheyne won on the Light Green course, in 34.04, as James Edward, 3rd in 39.20 was also on the podium. The finish placings were backed up on Orange, as Hannah Inman took the win in 19.45, for the 2nd quickest time on any class on the day, and Matthew Owen was 3rd (21.33).

FVO had the top two on Yellow, as Catriona Downie led the class in 20.25, for her first-ever course win and Erin McDaid (31.09) was 2nd, and a 2nd place finish for Simon Downie (27.39) rounded out a good day on the park for the club.