Bath's two outstandingly talented young orienteers, Joe Hudd and Oliver Tonge, have returned from two National competitions in the Midlands with more Gold and Silver medals to prove they are the top ranked M10 (Under-12) duo in the country this year.
In the British Sprint Championships held around the Loughborough University campus Joe Hudd retained the title he won last year with a blistering 9.00 min run around the 1.3 km course. He finished 2:30 min clear of the opposition lead by Oliver Tonge who won the Silver medal. This reversed the result in the recent J-K International Sprint competition when Oliver won.
On the following day, running on Stanton Moor, near Matlock in Derbyshire in the British Middle Distance Championships Joe achieved a clean run, with not a single error, to win the 1.5 km course in 9:02 min. He thus secured another double; a repeat of last year's result in the same M10 class – which has been hailed as a unique achievement by the High Littleton boy. With Oliver, Weston All Saints PS, claiming the second place, both these national events had been dominated by Bath runners.
In the M14 (Under-16) race over 2.3 km Zac Hudd had put up a very creditable time of 18:05 min to take the Bronze medal in a very tight finish run on a very technical and physical course. Just 32 secs separated 1st and 3rd, and the Norton Hill boy finished ahead of many older rivals including Eddie Narbett (Kingswood) who was placed 5th a further 46 secs behind.
The climax of the orienteering season is the British Championships event due next weekend in Surrey with more Gold medal opportunities for Bath runners. The Bath 'M10 dream team' of Bailey, Hudd and Tonge are recognised nationally as strong favourites after their recent victory at the J-K International.
