A knockout sprint race gets underway, Megan Carter-Davies leads the pack to the Royal Mile, photo: on the red line
The 2024 World Championships were in Edinburgh. It was the second time a World Champs had been sprint only and it was very well done. The build up and lead in events had been successful. The support of the City and University was great, and there were hundreds of volunteer helpers. The arenas were splendid, each special in their own way. The courses were notably imagiantive and technical and it all went pretty smoothly.
By the end the big nations had taken all the medals (Sweden, Switzerland 6 each, Norway 2; Finland 1) but Czechia, France, Hungary, Poland, Denmark, Italy, New Zealand, Spain and Great Britain all had athletes in a top-6 who were presented with a diploma at the medals ceremonies.
Megan Carter-Davies and Grace Molloy were the British athletes getting a top-6: Megan in the Knockout Sprint and Grace in the Individual Sprint.
Summary
All the finals were broadcast free of charge in the UK on Eurovision Sport.
On the organising front lots of credit to Andy Mitchelmore, Jon Cross, Bob Dredge, Alasdair Pedley, Jon Hollingdale, Mark Stodgell and Lorna Eades. This is by no means an exhaustive list even for the major roles: see Bulletin-4 for a better one. The Senior Event Advisor was Áron Less of Hungary.
Frank Townley and Joe Hudd, two of the planners, discuss their courses in Episode 30 of the Orienteer Pod. Other planners were Graeme Ackland, Jon Cross, and Helen Bridle. The National Controller was Tony Thornley, assisted by Rob Hickling.
Great Britain
Britain had a team of ten, image: British Orienteering
Women
Megan Carter-Davies and Grace Molloy ran all the events. Charlotte Ward and Fiona Bunn ran the Individual Sprint. Cecilie Andersen ran the Knockout Sprint.
Men
Ralph Street ran all the events. Nathan Lawson ran both inidvidual races. Peter Molloy ran the Individual Sprint. Freddie Carcas ran the relay. Jonathan Crickmore ran the Knockout Sprint.
Charlotte Ward
Charlotte Ward, running the WOC24 Individual Sprint Qualification race in Leith, photo: on the red line
After the championships Charlotte announced she was retiring from international competition. Charlotte ran five World Champs. She is one of four GBR women to have won a World Champs medal - her's being a silver in the sprint relay in 2022 where she ran first leg. She also won a bronze running final leg in the relay at the World Games that year. In 2016 she won gold with the relay team at the World University Championships. She has a Yorkshire Vest for Cross-Country and a marathon pb of 2:44:36 (London 2023).
Individual Sprint
Peter Molloy, who missed a control, was the only GBR athlete not to make it through morning qualification races in Leith.The afternoon finals were in central Edinburgh, the men running first.
It was a day of contrasting fortunes for the Molloy siblings as Grace Molloy came a splendid 6th, having been as high as 2nd at about the halfway point - but it was a very technical race and positions were changing all the time. Five different athletes led the race.
Megan Carter-Davies was 9th and Charlotte Ward was 38th.
In the men's race Nathan Lawson was 15th, and Ralph Street was 28th. This was a very good run for Nathan - he had previously been 15th in 2021 and missed qualification in 2022. It was Ralph's third run in a WOC sprint and his lowest position.
Sprint Relay
Megan and Grace were joined by Freddie Carcas and Ralph Street for the Sprint Relay. They were aiming for a medal but came 7th.
Like the World Games in 2022 the Sweden last leg runner contesting the medal positions missed a control. Britain were fourth in both races as the last leg began, but unlike in 2022 when GBR were not close and expectations were low this year GBR were just 13 secs behind (close but not quite close enough) and Megan on the last leg was expected to "go for broke".
Knockout Sprint
All six GBR athletes made it through qualification races at Wester Hailes, and so were in the 36 women and 36 men for the afternoon knockout races.
Megan Carter-Davies and Jonathan Crickmore got through the quarter-finals. This was a very good result for Jonathan who had an injury at the test weekend two weeks beforehand and was unsure whether he would run until the competition weekend. He did not make the final. Megan did though, by edging a sprint to the line in the semi-.
Megan certainly animated the final with her different route choice, and was in the lead with a couple of controls to go, but lying third at the penultimate control she tried a different route and finished 5th.
