Junior News

Southdowns Juniors victorious in YBT heat at Balcombe.Well done to the junior squad. A solid effort by all our runners.

23 juniors took part in this year's heat at Balcombe. The size of the squad is really encouraging and we hope to get this number over 30 for the YBT final.

Provisional results can be found here

The final takes place in Sheffield on 9th July, and you don't need to have run in the heat to run in the final, so save the date. We will likely be traveling up by mini bus.

There will be a lot more competition at the final but it’s always a great occasion. The area is planned to be Sandall Beat Wood - a local nature reserve https://www.doncaster.gov.uk/services/culture-leisure-tourism/sandall-beat-wood The map is on routegadget here. Last used in 2020

Thanks to everyone that helped with organisation and also Mole Valley for a great event.

Will

Junior Team Manager

Good luck to our 21 juniors taking part in YBT on 19th March

A team of 21 SO juniors are looking forward to taking part in the heat of the Yvette Baker Trophy, which takes place at Balcombe on Sunday 19th March.

This is the annual inter-club competition for M/W10's to M/W18's. It's a great opportunity for juniors to take part in competition and for those just starting out, they can run in a pair on a yellow.

The final takes place in Sheffield on 9th July, and you don't need to have run in the heat to run in the final, so save the date.

Ben and Scarlet selected to run for England

A huge well done to Ben Chapman M14 for being selected to run for England at Interland 2023 which will take place in Belgium in March. Ben has been a dedicated orienteer for many years now, setting a great example to those juniors around him. He is also a member of the South East Junior Squad (SEJS).

Scarlet W20 is one of our oldest juniors who has been very successful, with a number of England representations to her name. She is now at University, still orienteering and has also been selected to run at Interland. She's going to be running up in the W21 age class, so has the longest course to contend with.

The team of 42 runners, from M/W14 to M/W60, will travel to Lommel in Belgium for the annual 5-way Interland competition against 2 Belgian teams (Flemish and French speaking), a Dutch team and a Northern France team.

Tommy selected for GB Talent South Squad

Congratulations to Tommy Heap M18 on his selection to join the Great Britain Talent South Squad.

Following good performances at selection races earlier in the year, and recent race results, he and 3 other juniors from the South East Junior Squad (SEJS) have been selected to join the Talent Squad this year. They will benefit from extra coaching sessions and a wide range of additional expert guidance through the winter season. This is part of the GB Programme.

Coaching at Washington Common

This weekend’s coaching session at Washington Common looked at the importance of using a process for orienteering. This method leads to a consistent approach to tackling each leg and more predictable and positive outcomes. During the session the athletes came up with a simple process which was to always fold the map, select an attack point and then tick off (or ‘collect’) features on the way to the attack point. In this video of a really hard leg in Sweden, this exact same process is used.

Coaching at Inholmes Wood

This morning’s training session analysed video from this summer’s World Cup in Davos, Switzerland. Participants noted that Emil Svensk wasn’t running too fast, and was focused on navigation. His map was neatly folded and his thumb compass was used to ‘thumb the map’ to maintain map contact. In most of the video, Emil is either looking at his map or looking around the terrain. He spends very little time just running without actively navigating. Today’s training exercises encouraged participants to look closely at the map for large features and then match these to the terrain as they make progress towards each control.