Junior News
Juniors compete in epic Peter Palmer Relay 2024
At the beginning of September eight of our juniors headed up to the Lake District to take part in the prestigious six leg Peter Palmer Relay.
They were treated to a beautiful sunset in a mountainous location, fish and chips, fast paced competition, atmospheric sunrise and early morning bacon buttys. Read on to find out how they got on.
Knock-out Sprint fun eventLane End Common, Chailey
The Knock-out Sprint is an exciting orienteering format originally designed for TV. It’s popular at international level and is included in World Championship and World Cup events. This summer, the format comes to Sussex.
It will be a fun evening event where everyone runs 4 short 1km races in the style of a knock-out sprint competition. Athletes run in groups of 4 or 6 to see if they can return first and get promoted to the group above. In each round, one athlete will be promoted from the group and one will be relegated.
SO Junior Squad Compete at YBT Final 2024
On 7th July our junior squad travelled to Northaw Great Wood in Hertfordshire to compete in the final of the Yvette Baker Trophy. This is the premier Junior Inter-Club competition for English and Welsh orienteering clubs. We had a team of fourteen juniors ranging from age 9 to 18.
The team braved torrential rain to get around their courses. The team did really well with some knockout performances. Full results here and courses here. After the event everyone got the now customary ice cream.
Next year's event is on 6th July and is being organised by SO at Capite Wood, so save the date now.
Success at JK International Festival of Orienteering
Congratulations to all those who took part in JK over the Easter Bank Holiday weekend. Our very own Roger won all his races and got the JK Performance Shield as well as gold medals for the sprint and the two day event in M85L. Darrell High achieved a silver medal in M55L, Heather High a bronze medal in W18E and Ruth Rhodes a bronze medal in W80L over the two-day event.
SO have five new Southern Champions
This year's Southern Championship took place at the November Classic in the New Forest on 5th Nov. This is a popular event for Southdowners and is always well attended.
Emma Chapman W12, Ben Chapman M14, Will Heap M50, Julia Jarvis W55 and Alan Velecky M55 all tackled the long courses over fast but pretty wet terrain and beat off stiff competition to become Southern Champions. They were each awarded a trophy, as well as a coveted Southern Championships Beanie Hat:
In addition the following members made the podium and got a beanie hat.
2nd M21E Nick Jarvis (he was 2nd by 1 second), 3rd W10A Harriet Nichols, 3rd W12A Emily Waters, 3rd M18E Tommy Heap, 3rd W80 Ruth Rhodes
Peter Palmer Junior Team Relays 2023
One of the premier junior relay events of 2023 took place at Stowe Park, Buckinghamshire, in the early hours of Sunday 10 September. SO had a full team (hooray!) with a mix of very experienced and novice relay runners.
The SO team arrived in small groups at the event base in the early evening of the day before. Part of the tradition of the event is that all teams prepare for the early morning start by taking over a large hall and sleeping on the floor. Some of the other club teams participated in a football tournament, though our SO team (quite sensibly) preferred to minimise the chance of injury and save their energies for the running during the main event.