Red Bull Robin Hood

Last weekend a group of 17 ShUOC athletes travelled to Sherwood Pines Forest for the inaugural Red Bull Robin Hood orienteering adventure. This race was a normal orienteering “score” format with 30 controls to get in 75 minutes, but with the added twist of 6 bonus controls where extra points can be won. These 6 extra controls all offered 20 bonus points for successfully completing a Robin Hood themed challenge, such as archery, rope climbing or an onion catapult challenge.

Having identified this as an event ShUOC wanted to support and, hopefully, impress at, everyone was looking forward to some hard racing. Red Bull invited the entire British squad so there was a classy core to the field for the race, including ex-ShUOC athlete Ralph Street coming over from Scandinavia. The Orienteering didn’t disappoint and neither did ShUOC’s archery skills. The men’s race podium was filled with ex-ShUOC; with Ralph Street winning and Dave Schorah coming 2nd. ShUOC then packed out the men’s top 15 with 6th, 7th, 8th, 11th, 13th and 14th places. In the women’s race Durham Uni athlete Lucy Butt took the win, with ShUOC’s very own Barbora 2nd, Anna 3rd and Hannah 4th.  Full results can be found here.

After the race everyone stayed in the event village to enjoy the food, drink and live music arranged by Red Bull and cheer wildly for ShUOC during the prize giving.  It’s safe to say we were all blown away by the lengths Red Bull had gone to for this event; the posse of photographers and videographers, the village, the Robin Hood actors, the music and the additional challenges, all whilst not damaging the orienteering at all. Thanks to everyone who made this happen, roll on 2015.