HORWICH athlete James Logue is making a radical switch to his usual international plans this year. But he should know which direction to take - he's a world class orienteerer.

The 30-year-old Westhoughton High School teacher goes to the World Orienteering Championships in Scotland next month with the all Ireland team.

He is used to representing his country in the competition having figured in the World Championships in 1991, 1993 and 1995 in Czechoslovakia, the United States and Germany. But for the first time he will follow that by representing Northern Ireland in the fell running World Cup a few weeks later in Malaysia.

It's a testing combination for James but one he believes he is ready for after an impressive start to his fell running season.

"I have not concentrated on fell running from a representative point of view before," he explained.

"It is very difficult to combine the two events for cost reasons and because races clash.

"But there were one or two reasons why I wanted to do it. "I have never done it before and I was fell running well so I decided I was going to make a big effort to do it for Northern Ireland.

"It is the first time I have seriously thought about doing the fell running and I went over for the selection race and won it."

He also savoured a new experience when he ended a decade of frustration by finally becoming a winner in the Irish Orienteering Championships, the qualifying event for the all Ireland team. "I have had 10 attempts at winning it and this was the first time I managed it," he declared.

He finished the 13k 600m of climbing event over four minutes ahead of second place.

The following week in the Mourne Mountains in the selection race for fell running team he completed his remarkable win double over seven miles and 2,400ft of climbing on tough mountain terrain.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.