The British Relay Orienteering Championships took place today at Holmbury, a forested sand ridge with intricate mineworkings and some rough ground for running.

Both the Premier classes were won by convincing margins. The South Yorkshire team of Kim Baxter, Jenny Peel and Rachael Rothman stormed home in first place with a five-minute lead over South London and South Ribble. Ben Stevens, Jamie Parkinson and Peter Hodkinson brought their Oxford University ‘Posh Boys’ team home in first place on the Men’s premier, over four minutes ahead of Sheffield University’s ‘Men of Steel’. Nottingham came in third.

The winners of the Men's & Women's Premier relay on the run-in to the finish

In the other age classes, there was further success for South Yorkshire with a first and second place in M40. Mark Chapman, Martin Ward and Bill Edwards secured the victory, and the Southern Navigator Snow Men came in third.

The most contested women’s class was W50, with 14 teams competing. The Bristol OK team of Alison Simmons, Jackie Hallett and Alice Bedwell overhauled the leading team on the last leg to earn a comfortable victory, with Happy Herts and Lakeland filling the remaining podium places.

Full results for the Relays, as well as Trail-O and Saturday’s Long Championships can be found here.

Results Summary

Men’s Premier: OUOC (Ben Stevens, Jamie Parkinson, Peter Hodkinson)

Women’s Premier: SYO (Kim Baxter, Jenny Peel, Rachael Rothman)

Men’s Short: CLYDE (Simon Gardner, Thomas Wilson, Donald Petrie)

Women’s Short: SO (Anna Chapman, Lucy Thraves, Julia Jarvis)

M40: SYO (Mark Chapman, Martin Ward, Bill Edwards)

W40: INT (Lorna Eades, Jane Ackland, Heather Hartman)

M50: SROC (Mike Johnson, Andrew Quickfall, Quentin Harding)

W50: BOK (Alison Simmons, Jackie Hallett, Alice Bedwell)

M60: HOC (Michael Baggott, Brian Hughes, Andy Hemsted)

W60: DVO (Liz Godfree, Pauline Ward, Judith Holt)

M18: SYO (Michael Adams, Zachary Field, Dane Blomquist)

W18: LOC (Katie Wright, Natalie Beadle, Sarah Jones)

M14: MAROC (Jake Chapman, Alistair Chapman, Abigail Mason)

W14: AIRE (Lucy Haines, Laura King, Annie Brown)

M/W12 (Mini Relay): SOS (Jack Edwards, Dominic Emmerson, Lucy Warland)     

Mixed Ad-Hoc: GRAMP (Iain McLeod, Carolyn McLeod, Calum McLeod)

Junior Ad-Hoc: CLOK (Barnaby Warren, Aidan Rigby, Saskia Warren)

Item posted by David Maliphant

The British Orienteering Championships (long distance) were held earlier today on Winterfold and Pitch Hill, in Surrey.  In the Men's Elite race (17km) Murray Strain (INT) took the win in 93:37, ahead of Chris Smithard (DEE) in 96:38 and (still a junior) Jonny Crickmore (ShUOC) in 97:09.  The Women's Elite (11.2km) was won by Tessa Hill (HOC) in 73:37, with a good lead over second placed Sarah Rollins (BAOC) in 79:34 and third placed Helen Gardner (SLOW), 80:01.

In the junior elite classes there were victories for Sarah Jones (LOC) in W18E, Lucy Butt (SARUM) in W20E, Aidan Smith (SYO) in M18E and Peter Bray (CLOK) in M20E.

Courses were well planned with most having at least one "long leg" which provided great route choice options.  The forest was tough underfoot with bilberry and some areas of brashing, but also plenty of options for using tracks and paths, so running speeds were generally fast.

Results for all age classes are on the BOC 2013 results page.  Today's race was also round 9 of the UK Orienteering League.

Murray and Tessa after the prize-giving.  Photo: Rob Lines.

Item posted by Martin Ward.

Today, Saturday 4th May, Jackie Newton, National Talent Development Coach, and Allan Bogle, Coaching and Talent Development Officer for Northern Ireland, spent the day with coaches in Switzerland to observe and experience 'Performance Tests' that athletes aged 14 - 20 undergo to benchmark their progress, monitor their development and assess their potential.

The day was organised by Beat Meier, Talent Development Coach for Swiss Orienteering, and followed the guidelines of the Swiss Orienteering Federation for the PISTE system (prognostic, interactive, systematic coach assessment).

(Photograph from left to right: Allan Bogle, Beat Meier, Jérôme Käser, Jackie Newton)

The test was carried out in three parts:

• A 3000m time trial on the athletics track
• A cognitive, orienteering - specific test in a classroom, some of which required athletes to make quick decisions, when looking at maps with regard to route choice and route profiles  
• An O-400 test, which involved the athletes running 400m on the track whilst studying a map, discarding it and then drawing the controls onto a blank map and repeating five times (2000m run with 4 X map memory test)

Approximately 50 athletes took part and several heats were required for each of the tests. A long day for the coaches involved!

Allan opted to experience the O-400 test for himself and came tantilisingly close to the top time but not quite close enough. A review of his performance from the Swiss coaches concluded that he looked at his map more than was necessary and a bit less time looking down may have saved him a few precious seconds. Allan is going to work on this over his next few training sessions!

Photograph: Allan beginning his final 400m.

Special thanks goes to Patrik Thoma, Beat Meier and Jérôme Käser for this invitation to 'share good practice'. Jackie will stay out in Switzerland until Friday 10th May to interview the parents of world champion orienteers and understand more about developing potential in talented athletes.

“Valuing volunteers and volunteering” is one of the areas the Board wants to focus on in 2013 and, in doing so, has set up the Volunteer Needs Work Group.

Volunteering in orienteering takes many forms, from access and car parking, to welfare and web development. The common feature is that people give up their time and put effort into making sure the sport happens.

We are interested in the attitude and motivations of all volunteers in orienteering so that we can see how British Orienteering can best provide support.

The Volunteer Needs Work Group has put together a questionnaire, accessed via this link https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/vol_ques_2013, and we would be grateful if you could take a few minutes to complete it please.

The questions look at why you volunteer, what you enjoy and don’t enjoy about volunteering and what improvements could be made.

This information will enable us to provide the most appropriate and effective support to volunteers within orienteering. We would like the questionnaire completing by Wednesday 22nd May if possible please.

If you have any further views about volunteering in orienteering, not covered by the questionnaire, please email info@britishorienteering.org.uk with ‘Volunteering in Orienteering’ as the title.

Many thanks for your assistance with this.

Volunteer Needs Work Group

The junior athletes that will represent GB at this year'sJWOC spent the weekend together for the British Sprint and Middle Champs and extra relay training on Crich Chase today.

After a hard day of racing at Loughborough on Saturday they had an evening with Steve Vernon, Performance Lead, to explore how they may optimise their performance at this year's championships. Sunday was spent at the Middle Championships on Stanton Moor and was followed by a session at the accommodation led by Jeff Butt on insights and experiences of the Czech terrain where the championships will be held.

Kris Jones, who won silver at JWOC in 2010, took the team for a training session on Crich Chase today. The session comprised 4 X 1km efforts to simulate relay competition:

Rep 1 - 1st leg relay - mass start

Rep 2 - 2nd leg relay - chasing start

Rep 3 - 2nd leg relay - hare and hounds with Charlotte Watson and Aidan Smith taking the role of the hare (neither were caught!)

Rep 4 - Scenarios were set and athletes were given information on their incoming runner through the spectator control!

Thanks to Kris Jones, Ed Nicholas, Jeff Butt and Steve Vernon for the time and effort they put into making the weekend a success and Derwent Valley Orienteers for facilitating the use of Crich Chase.

The Rules of Orienteering and associated documents have undergone a ‘makeover’ for 2014.

This consultation will be open from 23rd March 2013 - 31st May 2013 for everyone to comment on via a survey - see details below.

Which rules and documents have changed?

The Rules of Orienteering have been split into 3 sections:

• Definitions of terms
• Rules of Orienteering – Competitors
• Rules of Orienteering – Event Officials

The Appendices have been streamlined and all the mandatory clauses are now in the Rules of Orienteering and the rest has become guidance, moved to be a Competition Rule or deleted.

The Event Guidelines have gone altogether. Their content has moved into the rules, the Appendices or been deleted.

The Competition Rules have been re- ordered to all follow the same standard format but in essence remain unchanged.

Has the content of the Rules changed?

Yes it has. The language has been modernised and now all of the rules are requirements, the terms should and shall are no longer used.

Have any new rules appeared?

One or two are new. These are in the Competitors rules and cover such things as use of mobile phones during a competition.

It might seem like there are lots of new rules for Event Officials but these have always existed, they were buried in the Appendices.

Because so much has been reworded and moved around, it is quite possible that inadvertently something has been left out or there has been an unforseen change of meaning, therefore we want competitors and Event Officials to check them over before they are published. In addition, we need comments on whether they are as user friendly as such a set of rules can be.

The rules for 2014 are available here:

British Championships
JK
Other competitions 
Junior Competitions
Rules of Orienteering

The method of making comments is by Survey Monkey, available here

Finally if there are any corrections or changes, please use the form available here to make these changes.

Thank you

Helen Errington

Event Manager

Item posted by Janine White