Day 1 Report
Auchingarrich proved a tough and testing area for the first day of Strathearn 2019, as orienteers from around the world enjoyed challenging terrain on a day with sunshine and a light breeze.
Day 1 was also a challenge for organisers, with split car parking and race arena, an inch of rain the day before, and a last-minute detour for the walk to the start. Thanks go to all the various teams, led by Day Organiser Sue Barrie, who helped deliver a first-class orienteering experience, and to everyone who had to walk a little further than hoped.
The Scottish 6 Days has always been keen on innovation and for the first time ever we attempted Livestream – some satellite bandwidth issues caused problems but if you go to the event website you can replay the days events in comfort on Vimeo. The Scottish 6 Days has also invested in a system that gave wi-fi across the whole race arena (O.Net) and live results as well as other useful information. Moravian's Kate McLuckie (3rd on W12A) was first finisher and first name to appear on the results page.
Karel Jonak and crew from the Czech Republic provided quality TV footage and we also decided to make GPS tracking of selected classes (M/W55A) available. In the interests of fair play, we asked competitors not to watch the livestream (or GPS) until they have completed their course. For the World Ranking Events GPS will not be shown till all Elite runners have started – this is a fun (but serious) holiday event and we don’t want to impose too many rules and restrictions such as collecting the map on completion of courses.
Concerns remain about spreading of diseases and pathogens so it was good to see some efforts being made to scrub up before and after running.
