Weekend Winners and Britchamps Qualifiers
Rob / 09.09.2002
It was a busy weekend with the Salomon X-adventure National Event taking place in the Scottish Highlands and the 6th Questars one-day race based at Carsington Water in the Peak District.
At the Questars race the windy weather of Saturday had eased off for Sunday’s canoe start, which was just as well as it’s a very open stretch of water. The race was full with 83 competitors in solos, pairs and teams and in sunny weather it was Questars regular David Hunt who won the race overall. David is a veteran from an orienteering background and the more he practices his canoeing the harder he is going to be to catch! Southern Spiders were among the winners too, winning the women’s team category. As yet the calculations have not been done to work out which is the leading team of 4 in the series – they will win a free place in the British Championships Final as a qualifier. (See next page for the list of class winners.)
In wetter and cooler weather in Scotland the Salomon 36 hour National Event was also full and highly competitive, and again the winners were going for a qualification place in the British Championships. Team ‘Looking for a Sponsor’ (and who isn’t?) were the winners (Steve Birkinshaw, Morgan Donelly, Jon Whittaker and Helene Diamantides). Formerly Team Compeed/Maxim they missed out on winning the Hebridean Challenge and getting a qualification place by a cruel injury to Jon Whittaker on the final run, but this time there were no problems and they came home safely ahead of Team Wales. (Second again – as they were last year.)Both the 2 leading teams had last minute replacements for their female team members. Diamantides was going to act as back-up for ‘Looking for a Sponsor’ until Liz Cowell had to pull out at the last minute, and Angela Brand-Barker was also injured at the last minute, so Nicky Davies joined Team Wales. (As replacements go those two are pretty good!) The canyoning was particularly spectacular and full results and pictures are with Tim Lloyds race report.
