Live results will be available on the day here https://www.bko.org.uk/live_results/ 

 Full results are available at   https://www.bko.org.uk/sites/default/files/results/2026/01-25/

 Routegadget available here https://www.bko.routegadget.co.uk/rg2/#197 

 SCOA Champs results available here  https://www.bko.org.uk/sites/default/files/results/2026/01-25/indexscoa....

Organisers Comments

When we were unable to get permission for our first-choice forest, we returned to a very familiar venue - Start Posts. This gave us some clear positives:

• A large forest that has hosted many major events over the years (my first event here was back in 1975!)
• Hardstanding parking, which was a big improvement on last year

There were also a few challenges:

• Parking had to be spread across many car parks, some with a longer walk to the assembly area
• The assembly area itself was very small

We very much hope that the positives, combined with Craig’s excellent courses, more than made up for these limitations.

As a small club, putting on two events over a single weekend places a significant demand on our members. Everyone worked incredibly hard to make sure both days ran smoothly, and we hope you enjoyed the contrast between the two events.

Although Sunday didn’t enjoy Saturday’s weather, the rainfall was far less than we had feared, and it was great to see so many of you stay on for the prize giving. Instead of medals this year, we awarded the usual trophies to the winners, along with some local fudge for the top three on all championship courses — we hope you enjoyed this.

That just left the familiar end-of-day tasks: packing up plenty of wet and muddy kit, collecting controls, and sorting everything out to round off the weekend.

A huge thank you to Craig for planning, Paul for controlling, and to all the volunteers whose efforts made the weekend possible.

Uploaded Routegadget traces suggest that a few competitors may have run along MTB tracks marked as forbidden routes, supported by eyewitness observation near the Surrey Hill reservoir compound. No specific names were supplied to the Organiser, and it may have been unintentional, or the competitor could have been running parallel to the OOB path. Please be aware that some near misses with MTB's were reported, with one formal (and angry) complaint received. Our future access to parts of this wonderful area relies on us adhering to the conditions we agreed with the landowner, communicated to competitors, and marked on the map. 

We are not actively seeking to disqualify people retrospectively for accidental transgressions, and did not receive any specific complaints or protests from other competitors. Any feedback on the conditions imposed, any minor incidents on the day, and the clarity of the map would be welcome, to inform future events and course planning. It is inevitable that some of the more "interesting" contoured areas of the map are most attractive to both orienteers and MTB riders.

Simon Moore
Organiser

Planners Comments

Things that make a Planner happy:

1) Great feedback and happy runners on the courses

2) A large enough area with room for all the courses, without the need for double sided maps or runners going over the same area too many times. 

3) An area which allowed me to plan a good start with lots of different first/second controls which (hopefully) made you make a decision straight from the start.  Also an area which allowed for a long leg (2.5k) on the longer courses and also gave runners a route choice on legs (straight line through the bracken, or use the paths).

4) A great map and mapper (thanks Simon) who made quick map updates and also created the 3 map formats/sizes I wanted.

5) Seamless organisation before and on the day (again thanks to Simon and BKO), and probably the best laid out start I have seen for many years (thanks Andy).  Also many thanks to all the control collectors who stayed after the event to make sure everything was brought back in.

6) A very good controller, who supported me, gave me prompt feedback, found all my tags, but also questioned me on a number of courses to ensure that they were fair (we changed the orange course in particular) and safe for older runners.  Thanks Paul.

7) Having family to help on Saturday and on Sunday morning (in the rain) to put out controls and check and wake them up for the event.  Thanks to Jane, Katie and Alex.

Things that frustrate a Planner:

1) Dying bracken which is not dying down quick enough before the event!

2) Wet dying bracken (sometimes up to my shoulders) which made tagging controls a very wet and cold experience in November.

3) Having the event location changed on you before the event - I had about 50% of the courses already planned for Hawley before permission was withdrawn.

4) Control 115 (22 on the men's elite) - We spent more time on this control (planner, mapper, controller) than any other control, making sure the map was right and the control was in the right place.  On the day there were no issues. (which is probably a plus point for all the effort we put in!)

Things that could have gone better (I will remember to look at next time):

1) Mens elite course was a bit short, probably 1.5km, which resulted in all the other courses being slightly shorter than the target winning time.  However, I did not get any comments about the courses being too short.

2) Orange course was probably too long by about 500m (should probably have taken number 4 out to make it shorter).

Craig Blackford (BADO)

Controller's Comments - Southern Championships, 25 January 2026

For both Planner and Controller this was a first "area championship" event as appointed officials, with Competition Rule I effectively elevating a Level B event into something more like a Level A (minus the arena!). A few extra things to consider, but the basics don't change - controls, courses and a challenge matched to the status of the competition. Star Posts gave Craig a large area to play with, and gave me a 22km control checking route!

I didn't have to suggest many changes to Craig's initial courses or control sites, and Simon's experienced team of BKO helpers didn't need much guidance either. Three different map layouts, the instructions to the printer, and the logistics of recycling forest kit from the previous day's urban event became more important preparatory issues. 

Another requirement of an Area Championship is the use of a timed start, coupled with seeding of top competitors across all classes, and an aim to maintain an even spread of competitors throughout the start period. This inevitably means that not everyone gets the start time they wanted, you can't just queue-and-go, and change requests cannot always be accommodated. With distributed and distant car parking there was always a chance that some would misjudge their transit times from car to start line, so we tried not to be too hard on late starters. I hope those uncertainties and inconveniences didn't detract from your day too much.

An unknown until the day of the event is whether the length of the benchmark M21E course (from which all others are derived) has been correctly estimated. Rule I gives all the guidance, with ratios derived from estimated age-adjusted running speeds and target winning times - you can look it up for yourself on the BO website. These winning times relate to a "best in class", regardless of whether that person enters on the day. At Star Posts, the UK's current top-ranked M21E ran Course 1 in a time of 83 minutes (well done Luke!), so it seems we were perhaps about 10% short of the target of 90 minutes. We hope you didn't feel short changed if your own course took a few minutes less than intended across most of the senior classes.

Overall it's a big thank you and well done to Craig, Simon and the whole team from BKO, many of whom had key volunteer roles on both Saturday and Sunday. Together you made my job as straightforward as it could be.

Paul Fox, SN