The urban orienteering series returned south of the border for the 4th installment of The UK Cities Cup. Lincoln Orienteering Group (LOG) have long been supporters of urban orienteering and of the series with urban environments providing some of their most testing terrain. This promised to be yet another high quality round of racing and for the mens race in particular it was a chance to close the gap on overall Leader, Murray Strain, as he was not competing.

The format returned from Kingussies sprint distance to a middle distance length, favoured by most of the series event planners this year. Due to it's location, a strong contingent travelled from Sheffield and returned with the top spots in both the mens and womens open.

The Johnson couple of Oli and Jenny, making their debut's in the series, took the wins in convincing fashion in the event which was opened by the Lord Mayor of Lincoln. Oli beat his clubmate Mike Sprot by over 2 and a half minutes, who was a further 3mins ahead of another SYO athlete, Andrew Preston.

Jenny's win was even more convincing in the, womens race beating current series leader Helen Palmer by over 4mins! Helen did extend her lead at the top to 10 points over Laura Daniel who had to settle for 3rd on the day.

It was yet another success for the event the new series with high quality planning and organisation from LOG. Event entries and interest in the series is gaining momentum which will hopefully continue in to the next round which is being held by OD in Warwick in conjunction with the Warwick Words Festival. Full details including entry details can be found here

Full reaction and views about the race here

Full race results here

Overall series standings here

(Some) Race photos here courtesy of mysportstream.com