British athletes look forward to the Long Race at World Orienteering Championships

A thrilling week of racing concludes today when the final race of the World Orienteering Championships, the Long Race, takes place in the beautiful and remote wilderness of Glen Affric, 25 miles south-west of Inverness.

Around 150 runners from 51 countries will take on the challenge of the physical Highland terrain in, what many refer to as, the blue riband event of the World Orienteering Championships. Despite the lack of paths or tracks to run along, the fastest men are expected to take only 95 minutes to navigate through woodland and over heather on a 15.5km course with 660m of vertical ascent, while the women will race over 9.7 km.

Favourites for the men’s title include legendary French runner Theirry Gueorgiou, who already has twelve World Championship gold medals to his name; Daniel Hubmann of Switzerland, who won the Middle race in Darnaway near Forres on Tuesday (4 August); and Swedish runner, Gustav Bergman. Great Britain will be represented by Graham Gristwood (handicap 24.5), Hector Haines (handicap 1.6) and Ali McLeod (handicap -0.2).

McLeod, from Evanton in Easter Ross, made his World Championship debut earlier in the week with a respectable 28th place in the Middle, and will be targeting a top-20 finish in Glen Affric.

McLeod knows the Highland terrain well, and thinks that the British runners may benefit from home advantage. “I think the foreign athletes will find the Highland courses tough, with heavy heather and some big hills. The terrain is sapping because you sink into it when you run – it takes some getting used to.”

The leading contenders in the women’s race include Switzerland’s Judith Wyder, Sweden’s Tove Alexandersson, and Great Britain’s Cat Taylor, who will be representing the home nation alongside Glaswegian Hollie Orr (handicap 10.8) and Edinburgh-based Claire Ward (handicap 5.6) .

Cat Taylor (pictured) took a bronze medal in last year’s European Long Championship and ran a great race to finish fifth in the Middle race at this World Championships, only 41 seconds from a medal. If she takes gold, she will become the first British woman to win a World Championship title since 1999, the last time the World Championships was held in Scotland.

Cat Taylor, originally from Whitby in Yorkshire but now based in Sweden, became familiar with racing in Scottish forests during her time at Edinburgh University, and describes the terrain in northern Scotland as “unique”, adding “I think one of the challenges is that there’s always variation within each forest.”

The home support for the British runners has been a real presence in the race arena throughout this World Championships, not least at the Forest Relays on Wednesday, where the British men were involved in an exciting race that saw them just miss out on the medals, and Cat Taylor hopes that this will continue during the Long race. “It will be great for the whole team to have an extra cheer through the arena – the feeling of support should give us all an extra boost.”

The men's Forest Relay event can be seenon the BBC iplayer here.

The women's start list can be found here.

The men's start list can be found here.

Photo: Cat Taylor at Darnaway, the venue for the middle and forest relay events. Credit: Dave Rollins