All aspiring elite athletes should read on!

As per our British team foot O selection policy, all athletes who wish to be considered for selection to the GBR teams for World Cup rounds 1 and 2 must submit an availability form by Friday 3rd May. The form can be found here.

World Cup rounds 1 and 2 take place in Switzerland (24-26 May) and Italy (1-2 June) respectively. These rounds will be the initial selection races for our WOC team, heading to Edinburgh in July.

The selection races used to pick our World Cup teams are Sprint Scotland; good luck to all athletes racing at these high-quality sprint races this coming weekend!

Results are in from yesterday's British Middle Distance Championships!

Access provisional results via this link or for a full breakdown, visit the AIRE website.

Well done to all winners and to everyone who took part this weekend! 

*Updated 29/04/2024: Results from Sunday's Northern Championships organised by CLARO are now also available online via this link. Well done to all involved in hosting the event and everyone who took part. 

Mapping is the one of the most rewarding and enjoyable roles. Not only does it improve your navigation skills, but it can also provide you with a different and new type of orienteering challenge.  

The British Orienteering E-Learning Mapping Courses, Introduction to updating Forest Mapping and Introduction to Sprint and Urban Mapping , developed with the expertise of David Olivant (Nottinghamshire Orienteering Club) and the educational robustness  of Pauline Olivant (Nottinghamshire Orienteering Club) .

Both courses are based around learners having access to either of the two most widely used mapping programs, Open Orienteering Mapper and OCAD.

We strongly advise that you seek an experienced mapper as a mentor to support you through your journey towards being a competent mapper.

Both courses are based on updating an existing map and rather than creating a new map from a previously unmapped area.

Course objectives

• To provide an introduction and basic understanding of the processes involved in how to update and amend an existing Orienteering map.

The course content is designed to only address the course objective rather than attempting to cover the full scope of Mapping. As we recognise that Mapping is a skill that takes much time and practice to hone.

The course should only take around 45- 60 mins to complete and for the whole of May is only £6.00

To access the course and find out more information about our other E-Learning courses, please visit the E-Learning homepage.

Interested in learning about our other E-Learning courses on offer? Visit the E-Learning homepage and access information on all the other resources we provide.

Hot and humid conditions met the athletes for the first race of the 2018 World University Championships. The terrain was not as the athletes expected. Initially most had presumed artificial barriers would be used to make the terrain a real technical challenge. Instead, they were met with a combination of flat, urban sections, interspersed with featureless forest. Though there were some routechoices, these were minimal and primarily located at the beginning and end of the courses, with a long ungaffled section in the middle of each course, meaning that any navigation mistake would be amplified. With temperatures climbing to 32 degrees, the athletes would have to keep calm and not push too soon and risk blowing early in the race; a cool temperament would be essential if a team slipped behind the leaders.

Cecilie Anderson began proceedings for GBR, with a long first leg putting everyone under-pressure and Hungary and France making an early split in the bunch. Although she had a couple of the longer gaffles initially, Cecilie stabilised her run behind what had become a breakaway trio of France, Hungary and Switzerland. Handing over in 7^th place, she sent Jonathan Crickmore out into the terrain just 30 seconds behind the leaders.

On leg 2, the leading trio began to extend their advantage, with Hungary initially breaking away, before France took the lead heading into the changeover. Behind Jonny was having a tough day, holding place in the group but making no inroads into the leaders, with the gap drifting out to 1:16 by the changeover.

On Leg 3, it was time for GBR to start making a comeback. Alexander Chepelin blitzed through the first splits, gaining time incessantly on Hungary, Poland and Spain in 4^th, 5^th and 6^th. Picking clean routechoices when the other runners were focusing on the running pace, by the changeover Sasha had pulled the team up to 6^th, just 1 second behind Hungary, but 50 seconds down on a medal position.

This left it up to Megan Carter-Davies to try to anchor the team to a second medal in successive championships for Great Britain. Megan started phenomenally quickly, and it was GBR and Poland moving the quickest of anyone in the terrain. By a third of the way through, Megan had already caught Norway, who had begun the leg in 3^rd and had dropped Hungary, but with Poland moving just as quick, it would be tough to get a medal. On the commentary it was announced that the French last leg was beginning to suffer at the spectator run-through, offering a small glimmer of hope to Megan (who had already clawed back 40 seconds). A late mistake by both France and Poland opened the door, but sadly it was too much of a gap to close. It was, however, a fantastic run to bring the British team back into 4^th place.

Full results can be found here.

Quotes from the Team:

Sasha Chepelin – My race was good. I felt a bit overheated at the start and wished I’d kept a bit cooler instead of warming up for so long. Luckily for me (but possibly not so for the rest of the team) it was more about flat out running today. A bit more technical orienteering would have been better for us, plus slightly cooler weather.

The Middle Distance:

After this solid start for the team, the athletes will move to the forest tomorrow for the Middle distance. Though vague the forest is apparently rough underfoot. There will be a high focus on good compass direction and again a high physical capacity will be needed to take a medal. First starts are from 08:00 UK time with medals expected to be decided around 12:00.

Two years ago, it was Lucy Butt who provided the top performance for Britain in the Women’s race, placing 19^th, with William Gardner being the best of the Brits in the Men’s race, placing 13^th. Let’s hope for even better from the runners tomorrow – good luck to all.