Galoppens 2015/16

Review

There were some great results for QO:

Brian Fletcher won Blue, with Jeff Pakes in third place.

On the Green, Club Captain Chris Hasler was fifth, with John Trayler 8th.

On the Short Green Bill Vigar was second.

But with four wins out of five, the star performance has to be Luke Shopland who has stormed away with the title on Light Green.

The above results are all down to the individuals orienteering prowess and nothing to do with the new scorer—our very own Spencer Modica, who has taken over the calculations from Joff Henley.

- Gavin Clegg, April 2016

The life of Brian

Amazing return from O's forgotten man

There's a rather interesting backstory to Wimborne's Brian Johnson, the chap I nudged off the series podium on Blue on the final day of the Galoppen season. Some might have felt that he seemed just a little bit too good for a debutant M65. Maybe they even remembered the face, behind the heavy beard...

In fact half of the UK top 50 orienteers were barely a twinkle in their parents' eyes when Brian last saw forest-based action. When we talk about recoveries from injury, we usually count days, weeks, months, years. But decades? Since 1992, this veteran of the Scandanavian O-Ringen events tried to satisfy the O-shaped hole in his life by chess, bridge, walking and even writing guidebooks on long distance trails. The man last seen punching his control cards at around the time of the outbreak of civil war in Yugoslavia and the election of the Major government then did a remarkable Life On Mars style timeshift in reverse, entering a brave new world of flashing and bleeping electronics but marginally less garish nylon. The Rip Van Winkle-esque facial growth further lends to the image of a remarkable reawakening. Read Brian's full story, courteousy of Wimborne's Waffle newsletter.

Jeff Pakes