Red Rose Orienteers celebrate British Championships success

Rebecca Harding, Heather Roome and Rebecca Rooke, with baby Harriet.

The weekend’s races were held on the slopes of Brown Clee hill, a mixture of forestry plantation and tricky moorland terrain.

Lancaster University student Rebecca Harding got the team off to a good start coming second on the first leg.

Heather Roome recorded the fastest time on the second leg and handed over to Rebecca Rooke with a six-minute lead. She extended the lead to nearly nine minutes by the finish.

In the over-50 women’s team, Deb Murrell was less than two minutes down after the first leg and Rowena Browne converted that to a two-minute lead on leg two.

On the final leg Jane Anthony brought the team home in silver medal position.

Red Rose had several successes in the previous day’s individual competitions.

Quentin Harding won the men’s over 50 championship, improving on his 2015 second place. Also in first place were Michael Finch (M12B) and Philip Gager (M70S).

There were second places for Finlay Johnson (M14A), Julian Lailey (M70L) and David Rosen (M60S) while Rebecca Rooke was third in W21L.