OUOC invites you to the sixth Oxford City Race to be held on Sunday 27th October 2024. Details can be found below.
Results are now available here
Routegadget available here - Please upload your gpx files - we'd love to see where you went!
Photos courtesy of Tom Alcock while marshaling can be found here
Organiser's Comments - Harry Stuart (OUOC):
Before anything else - To all the volunteers, university staff who've worked with us to secure permissions, and of course the competitors, thank you for joining us on a perfect day of weather and orienteering in Oxford at the weekend. Planning for this event began almost exactly a year ago with Jean-Luc and I agreeing to organise the Oxford City Race and meeting with Ben Green (TVOC) who was our controller. A quick check of the "City Race" folder of my university email account indicates that since then there have been 410 separate correspondences through my inbox! We somehow managed to pull the event off on the day without a single technical hitch, well other than the assembly initially being set up directly on the final run in. Thankfully things didn't have to be disassembled too much to rectify that issue - sorry to all the volunteers who were involved in that moving job!
As promotional materials indicated, this is the biggest the Oxford City Race has ever been. We had 483 competitors and a record ten colleges taking part in a course which was just about as challenging as we could make it. Securing so many permissions (not just the colleges but also the three separate departmental areas, the university parks, the council and the university sports federation) was a monumental task, especially given eight of the colleges had no recent experience of featuring their land in an orienteering event. We were particularly worried about competitor behaviour losing us permissions for the future but I am very glad to say we've had no complaints which means that we should be able to secure these permissions much more easily in the future!
There is a very long list of people to thank so if I don't name you directly then please know that you were nevertheless a great help. First Ben Green has been a great hand in checking that two students, who started orienteering at university and have never organised or planned an event before, knew everything they needed to know about how to pull off an event of this size. Alun Jones (TVOC) has done an incredible job on the tech side of things leading up to and during the event. Bob Beresford (TVOC) stepped in at very short notice to make our maps look so nice - he also updated the map of University Parks in March for TVOC which we have since copied. Jon and Nev (TVOC) helped provide kit for the start and on the course. Austin and Ruth Levitt of Buckinghamshire Search and Rescue provided our first aid free of charge through a mutual contact and we would like to encourage you to donate to the charity here to help support their work in the future. We are incredibly grateful for all the volunteers who helped at the event, not least Emily Elms and Carys Sharp (OUOC) who coordinated every marshal meaning Jean-Luc and I didn't have to think about it at all on the day - we really couldn't have done it without them. We've had multiple comments from competitors about how smiley the marshals were while standing at their gates on the course and we'd like to extend our thanks here.
I (Harry) also really want to thank Jean-Luc. While on the day our roles were delineated in the traditional way, this event is too much for one person to 'organise'. Since November it has really been a two-horse effort and there's absolutely no way I could have coordinated this event without Jean-Luc working his socks off too.
The colleges! In the rough order that you visited them we would like to thank all those who helped secure permissions and worked on the days leading up to the event at; Lady Margaret Hall, Wycliffe Hall, Kellogg, St Antony's, St Anne's, Green Templeton, Somerville, Keble, Mansfield and Linacre. Also our thanks go to the Science Area, Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, University Club, University Parks, the Security Services and Oxfordshire County Council for their support of the event. We hope to work with you again when the City Race returns in 2026!
Controller's Comments - Ben Green (TVOC):
From our initial meeting I had complete confidence in the ability of Harry and Jean-Luc to put on a first-class Oxford City Race. Planning and organisation were meticulous. Controlling was straightforward and a pleasure - with all three of us working in the Mathematical Institute (control 121 in today's race was outside it) we could have face-to-face meetings and easily head out into the area to address concerns. In an event as complex as this, with many different permissions to negotiate, as well as randomly shifting road- and utility works to keep up with, precise planning is essential but one also needs some luck. Thankfully we had that (and excellent weather) for today's event and it is hard to see how it could have gone better.
Following the success of CUOC's Cambridge City Race last year it's OUOC's turn to organise the event in Oxford. With a permissions spreadsheet that runs into the double digits you will experience the streets of Oxford along with departmental areas and up to TEN colleges, eight of which have never featured before! The courses will begin in University Parks and the event is not one to be missed.
A live document with the most up to date details can be found here. Please read it, especially the highlighted portions, before arriving at the event on Sunday.
Entries are still available on SiEntries (click here) but are capped at 500 people so enter soon to avoid disappointment. Entries will close on Thursday evening regardless of if the cap has been met. There will be no entry on the day.
Fees: Senior: £17 | Senior Non-BOF: £19 | Junior/Student: £7 | SIAC Hire: £2 (Lost dibbers will be charged at £65)
The assembly will be in the University Parks, ///:best.prep.needed, Oxford (map to follow). Toilets are available in the park. We will provide a place to drop bags but please be aware the parks are public and we take no responsibility for any lost or damaged items. There is minimal parking in central Oxford thus we encourage everyone to use the Park and Ride or the train.
If arriving by train: Book a ticket to Oxford (not Oxford Parkway), exit the station towards George Street, walk along Broad Street and then turn left up Parks Road
If driving from the North: Travel to Peartree Park and Ride and alight at the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, then walk East
If driving from the East: Travel to Thornhill Park and Ride and alight at Queens Lane, West. Walk East along the High Street, turn left up Longwall Street and follow St Cross Road North
If driving from the South: Travel to Redbridge Park and Ride and alight at the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, then walk East
If driving from the West: Do not use Seacourt Park and Ride. Instead follow the ring road to Peartree or Redbridge Park and Rides. There are long term road works by the train station which will leave you a long walk otherwise!
Seven courses are available, the approximate optimum distances have now been finalised and can be seen in the table below. Course 1 is the longest while courses 6 and 7 are for juniors. Courses 1-5 feature multiple major road crossings which will not be marshalled. These courses have been planned to cross major roads diagonally and roads are typically quieter on Sundays but you will still need to take extra care. Under 16s MUST enter on course 6 or 7 which will not cross roads. Junior courses will still be technically challenging and they will leave the bounds of the park to visit a nearby college or two - they are comparable in difficulty to an Orange course. While Oxford is a very flat city all courses feature stairs. The courses are listed in the following table - we have included the number of colleges each course will visit in case you may wish to run up a class. Please note some courses feature more than 30 controls - if you wish to enter a course with more than 30 controls and do not own a dibber with large enough capacity then you will need to hire one.
| Course | Class | Approximate Optimum Distance (km) | Controls | Colleges |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Men's Open | 10.8 | 37 | 10 |
| 2 | Women's Open, M40+ | 9.3 | 33 | 10 |
| 3 | W40+, M55+ | 7.4 | 27 | 10 |
| 4 | W55+, M65+ | 5.8 | 21 | 9 |
| 5 | W65+, W75+, M75+ | 4.9 | 18 | 7 |
| 6 | M/W16- | 4.8 | 20 | 2 |
| 7 | M/W12- | 2.4 | 12 | 1 |
Starts are from 10:00-12:30. Courses close at 14:30 by which point all competitors must have reported to download. Note that the clocks change on Sunday morning.
Organiser: Harry Stuart
Planner: Jean-Luc Portner
Controller: Ben Green, TVOC
Mappers: Bob and Pattie Beresford (TVOC), Harry Stuart
If you have any questions please contact us at cityrace@ouoc.org.uk. See you in October!