The Edinburgh University Big Weekend 2025 marked the much-awaited return of the City Race to Edinburgh’s historic city centre, after a 6-year hiatus during the extended WOC 2024 embargo. Over 600 competitors from all over the country came to test their navigation skills on the same streets that had hosted the athletes at the world championships last summer.
Whilst last year’s event had been a double sprint weekend, targeting international teams and elite runners in the lead-up to the World Championships, this year the event returned to its traditional format. The schedule included a night sprint around the university King’s Buildings campus, a City Race Urban around central Edinburgh on Saturday and a classic race on Arthur’s Seat on the Sunday. Due to the popularity of last year’s sprint-focussed event, there was also a Men’s and Women’s sprint course on both Saturday and Sunday, alongside the traditional urban/classic courses, which turned out to be a popular option with all ages.
The weekend provided a bit of everything (especially on the weather front). Unfortunately, the Friday night race had to be cancelled due to Storm Éowyn bringing hurricane force winds and a rare Red Weather warning in place across central Scotland. Edinburgh was essentially in lockdown, with wind speeds reaching 90 mph and many competitors unable to travel as planned.
However, by Saturday morning the storm had blown over and the organisers had been cooking up their own storm. With the support of Edinburgh University and the wonderful volunteers within the club, they managed to work some magic to reschedule the night race to the Saturday afternoon, conveniently squeezed into the time between the City Race and the evening’s Burns night ceilidh. This spectacular feat required the last-minute sourcing of a whole extra set of SI, checking the area for storm damage, rearranging permissions, arranging for the assembly to be opened up for us on the Saturday, and completely redrawing the helper rota to accommodate roles across both sites, all within a day.
Fresh from a night of re-organisation, on Saturday morning the controls were hung in a blizzard, with extensive ice underfoot providing a fresh challenge to the proceedings. However, as the ice had melted sufficiently by the first starts, we managed to get the competitors set off with no delays. The courses criss-crossed the Royal Mile, with competitors navigating the same labyrinth of alleyways and stairs used by competitors in the World Championships Sprint finals last July. The junior courses explored the central university campus and The Meadows.
Stories of epic journeys undertaken by competitors whose travel had been disrupted by cancellations the previous day came trickling in, with starts being held open to allow late arrivals to make it in time to get a run. We are quite honoured that the event was deemed worth a 2 am bus journey by one competitor. The City Race trophies for the winners of the Men’s and Women’s Open courses were awarded to Richard Purkis (AROS) and Alison Campbell (STAG), and the sprint courses were won by Charlie Rennie (WCOC) and Imogen Pieters (EUOC/SYO). The event was part of the UK Urban League and the Scottish Orienteering Urban League.
The keenest competitors headed straight to King’s Buildings to run the rescheduled Fight with the (nearly) Night courses, planned by Frank Townley. We were impressed with the turn out of 170 competitors, most of whom had already completed the physically demanding courses in the morning!
Those who were still standing by the evening then enjoyed the Burns Night ceilidh at St Peter’s Church. The dancing started at 8 pm, before an interlude featuring the City race prize giving, a raffle and a serving of haggis and oatcakes to replenish the energy, and finishing off with a highly competitive round of “elimination style Gay Gordons”, Strip the Willow and Auld Lang Syne.
Sunday morning arrived (too soon for those who had ceilidhed until the end), but it kindly brought some blue skies for the final day of the weekend. Competitors could choose between the Classic Race on Arthur’s Seat or a Sprint around the adjacent Dumbiedykes housing estate, both planned by EUOC alumna Ellie Bales, with refuelling options provided by the Scottish Junior Orienteering squad cake sale.
A huge thank-you must go to the super-stars in the organising team (Fiona Eades, Joe Sunley, Cat Chapman), Jim Bailey who stepped in to manage the re-organisation of Friday’s event, planners Frank Townley, Fiona Bunn and Ellie Bales, controllers Joe Hudd, Roger Scrutton and Graeme Ackland, the local clubs ESOC and INT who kindly donated equipment, Kong Running for donating prizes for all classes, and all of our wonderful volunteers. The event couldn’t happen without you.
