The Greater London Orienteering Summer Series 2022
26th June to 24th July
| Date | Venue | Public transport | Club | |
| Sun | 26 June | Claybury Park | Results | CHIG |
| Sun | 3 July | Horton Country Park | Results | MV |
| Sun | 10 July | Hornchurch CP | Results | HAVOC |
| Sun | 17 July | Gunnersbury Park | Results | SLOW |
| Sun | 24 July | Addington Hills | Results | LOK |
The ranking list extract for the 2022 series was taken on 22nd June and is available here.
The latest GLOSS Guidelines for event organisers are here. Plus GLOSS Purple Pen Guidelines.
2022 Event 5 – Addington Hills
Commentary to follow. Results Routegadget GLOSS scoring.
The following is the series club results.
2022 Event 4 – Gunnersbury Park
The penultimate event of the 2022 GLOSS series took us to Gunnersbury Park, the grounds of a former estate owned by the Rothchilds, but now co-owned by Hounslow and Ealing Councils. In contrast to last week, where it was the first control that caused the most controversy, this time it was the last control on the GLOSS course, on a statue of a larger-than-life kestrel carved out in wood, that caused some to lose precious time.
Gunnersbury Park is a new venue to orienteering and debutante planner (and organiser), Ryan
Sutton, did well to keep us thinking as competitors navigated their way round this landscaped park. Trickiest control was perhaps #10 right next to the North Circular Road at the base of a high wall within the confines of a narrow walled garden.
The intense heat didn’t put competitors off with further entrants on the day – it was already 25C at 10:15. However only 3 teams were able to field the at least six necessary to fully score. The raw results are on the SLOW site. Don’t forget to mark up your route on Routegadget.
Quickest on the 3.6km, 15 control course this time was Yordan Kolev (M35) of SLOW in 18:42, just ahead of Richard Lloyd (M50) of LOK in 20:31, who had been quickest last week. This winning time, was, for the first time in this GLOSS series, right on target for the GLOSS expected winning time of 20-22 mins. Well done to Ryan, the planner. Fastest woman was Carolyn Hindle (W21) of Scottish club FVO in 25:15.
Quickest on handicap ie the individual whose ratio of actual event points to expected points based on their current ranking was Teresa Bertran (W35) of SLOW with a ratio of 1.429. Teamwise, organising club SLOW, fielding 14 competitors, easily won. HAVOC pipped LOK for second place. Any scoring queries to Paul Todd at fixtures@londonorienteering.co.uk.
Catherine Galvin
2022 GLOSS series coordinator (LOK)
Series scoring to date
2022 Event 3 – Hornchurch Country Park
The third event of the 2022 GLOSS series took us to Hornchurch Country Park, the grounds of a former RAF station. In contrast to last week, where some of the later controls proved tricky, this time it was the very first control, less than 100 metres from the Start, that was the centre of controversy. An exacerbating factor would have been the sharp contrast between the dazzling sun at the Start and the darkness of the woods.
Unlike at the previous 2018 GLOSS at Hornchurch Country Park, the planner took us to new territory, to the peace and quiet of Berwick Glades and Berwick Wood (the site of former gravel workings), across the other side of the Ingrebourne River. The area evidently was not visited much by the general public.
Thanks to Dale Bennet for planning and Colin Jackson (both HAVOC) for organising and also re-visiting the site on Monday evening after work to check out once more the controversial control #1. The decision was that the control was in the right place but mapping beyond the control site could have led to some confusion.
The heat probably contributed to the smaller turn-out, but four clubs managed to field 6 runners to score fully. The raw results are on the HAVOC site, and after some adjudication the GLOSS handcapped result scoring (version1.1) have also been published. Don’t forget to mark up your route on Routegadget.
Quickest on the 4.1km, 13 control, 35 m climb course this time was Richard Lloyd (M50) of LOK in 28:37, ahead of Rob Patterson (M35) of SLOW, who had been quickest the two previous weeks. The winning time, however, was over 6 minutes longer than the GLOSS expected winning time of 20-22 mins. Maybe it was the heat. Fastest woman was Barbara Griessner (W50) of SLOW in 46:47.
Quickest on handicap ie the individual whose ratio of actual event points to expected points based on their current ranking was again Danni Angelova (W55) of DFOK with a whopping ratio of 2.154. Teamwise, DFOK and LOK, fielding 9 and 6 runners respectively, were joint first, pushing host club HAVOC into third. Any remaining scoring queries to Paul Todd at fixtures@londonorienteering.co.uk.
The series to date scoring is as below. It is tight at the top with DFOK, LOK and HAVOC within a point with two events to go – and with it being best 4 of 5 it could go any way.
Catherine Galvin
2022 GLOSS series coordinator (LOK)
2022 Event 2 – Horton Country Park
The second event of the 2022 GLOSS series at Horton Country Park provided an interesting course – with some very simple fast legs and some trickier – and a lot of undergrowth. Elusive on the map was the bat roost between controls 11 and 12. For the next iteration of the map, the mapper has promised to make it more prominent! Like the previous week the weather was sunny and humid weather (20c). Thanks to Ken Bridger of Mole Valley (MV) for planning and John Pickup for organising.
Unhandicapped course Results and Routegadget are now available. The full results will be available soon on MV’s website. You can use Routegadget to show the planner where you went and review others’ routes.
Quickest on the 4.2km (as the crow flies!), 13 control, 25 m climb course were Rob Patterson (M35) of SLOW and Abi Weeds (W45), both of SLOW in 29:21 and 35:12 minutes respectively. Rob was quickest last week too but this time his winning time was 7 minutes longer than the GLOSS expected winning time of 20-22 mins.
Five clubs fielded a full team of at least six successful competitors for the handicap competition. Quickest on handicap ie the individual whose ratio of actual event points to expected points based on their current ranking was Damien Harvey (M40) of MV with a ratio of 1.271. Team-wise, host club, Mole Valley (MV) was first, fielding 17 runners but series organisers, London Orienteering Klubb (LOK) were second, pipping DFOK. Full handicapped GLOSS results are here. Any scoring queries to Paul Todd at fixtures@londonorienteering.co.uk.
Catherine Galvin
2022 GLOSS series coordinator (LOK)
2022 Event 1 – CHIG Claybury Park
Sunny humid weather (18c) provided taxing running conditions for the inaugural event of the 2022 GLOSS series at Claybury Park, a venue which had been last used (for FROLICS/GLOSS) in 2009. Tony Maycraft of CHIG planned an excellent GLOSS course, making best advantage of the oak woodland and open spaces of the grounds of what was formerly a large mental asylum. Also thanks to Ray Curtis for organising.
Unhandicapped course results and Routegadget are now available on CHIG’s event page, You can use Routegadget to show the planner where you went and review others’ routes.
Quickest on the 3.8km (as the crow flies!), 14 control course were Rob Patterson (M35) of SLOW and Clare Lonergan (W40), both of SLOW in 24:41 and 32:42 minutes respectively. Rob’s time just under 3 minutes longer than the GLOSS expected winning time of 20-22 mins.
We have not changed the refinements to the handicapping we introduced in 2019 – competitors are awarded points based on how well on the day they outdo their average ranking scores across all British Orienteering (BO) ranking events over the past year instead of their best six. Following the suspension of orienteering during the Covid-19 pandemic, the period over which British Orienteering ranking points for handicapping purposes has been averaged, however, is currently a longer period. This is in line with how the BO ranking list is currently prepared, albeit that is about to change back shortly to 12 months.
Full details of the handicapping approach is here and the list of average scores for all BO members as at 23 June 2022 is given in the penultimate column, here.
Five clubs fielded a full team of at least six successful competitors for the handicap competition. Quickest on handicap ie the individual whose ratio of actual event points to expected points based on their current ranking was Danni Angelova (W55) of DFOK with a ratio of 1.553. Team-wise, current holders of the London Bus GLOSS trophy, HAVOC, were first. Unranked competitors are each assumed to perform at 0.95 against expectations. Full handicapped results are here. Any scoring queries to Paul Todd at fixtures@londonorienteering.co.uk.
Catherine Galvin
2022 GLOSS series coordinator (LOK)
