The final preparations are well under way ahead of this year's Jan Kjellström
International Festival of Orienteering 2024!
The teams will be out over the next couple of days setting up the arenas ready to receive you for a cracking good weekend of top-quality orienteering.
The weather gods have been less than kind, so we recommend you put on your best O shoes that give you the best grip.
Please note that version 6 of the programme is the latest (and hopefully last) version to be published. It went live yesterday, so please check it out, especially if you are coming in a campervan on Day 4 as the parking instructions have been changed.
Please note that the embargo area for Day 1 has been reduced.
Loughborough is now an established, and still testing, area. Day 1 will be a World Ranking event (WRE).
PreO will take place in urban terrain and there will also be an opportunity for participants to try out Biathlon Orienteering at the event (this will also be available on Days 2 and 3 of the Festival).
Beaudesert has been used for many major events, though arena is a new location and the owners are a little nervous at what to expect. Please make this an enjoyable experience for them. We want them to invite us back!
The final day of the Festival will take place at Stanton Moor. Another testing area and also in a new arena.
If you are on social media, please do not forget to tag us in your posts via Facebook, X and Instagram @britishorienteering. The hashtag for the event is #TheJK2024.
Finally, thank you to everyone involved in the production of this event. We hope you have a great weekend!
The embargo area for Day 1 of the JK has been reduced.
The updated embargoed area can be viewed here.
An area of the South West has been removed which contains the Burleigh Court hotel. However, anyone staying there involved in the JK should drive out to the main road and re-enter the campus through the Epinal Way entrance to get to the event.
They should of course avoid entering the embargoed area at all times.
All the latest information about this weekends JK can be found on the JK website.
If you are interested in representing GBR, please read on!
The Foot O selection policies have been updated. Now included are the availability forms for athletes, which you should use to to declare your interest in being selected for GBR teams at international competitions this summer.
More details can be found here: www.britishorienteering.org.uk/Selection
Note that the process to select the World University Orienteering Championships (WUOC) team is different to the others, with different deadlines, so please read that part of the policy carefully if you are interested in racing for GBR at WUOC.
Last weekend saw the athletes selected for Junior World Orienteering Championships (JWOC) and European Youth Orienteering Championships (EYOC) heading across to Aarhus, Denmark, to take part in the Danish junior test races happening in the Aarhus and Silkeborg areas.
This Pre-EYOC/JWOC camp focused on finalising preparations for both competitions taking place in a few weeks time, with EYOC running from June 28-30 in Grodno, Belarus and JWOC being held in Silkeborg between 7-12 July. The three test races included a sprint in Marienlystparken, Aarhus on Saturday, a long in Himmelbjerget on Sunday and a middle in the same forest on Monday, before the team flew back later that day. Jennie Taylor, Communications Officer at British Orienteering asked a couple of the athletes travelling out to Denmark to keep a diary of the weekend. Read Grace Molloy's diary account of her time away.
Pre-EYOC/JWOC 2019 Diary Reflections
Forth Valley Orienteers
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Morning:
The team travelled to Aarhus to prepare for the summer international competitions.
Afternoon:
Various athletes took the opportunity to either familiarise or refamiliarise themselves with the Silkeborg terrain whilst others went for an easy run to stretch out the legs after travelling.
Evening:
We had a meeting focussed on the sprint for JWOC where we discussed what we thought the terrain would be like and what challenges it would present.
Morning:
Some of the team did long or middle style training in a relevant forest but some people rested in advance of the test sprint in the afternoon. I ran middle controls in a group to test lines in the terrain and then we ran a few longer legs with to test out route choices.
Afternoon:
The first test race was a sprint and the Danes and the Fins were using it as a JWOC selection race. There were also lots of other JWOC athletes from different countries who were racing to prepare for the competition. The sprint was of medium technicality and we performed well, especially considering most of the other athletes would have prepared for this race and rested in the lead up to it. British athletes achieved the 2nd fastest time of the day of both the boys and girls.
Evening:
We analysed what we had learned from the sprint and then looked ahead to the long terrain for JWOC. Some of the area was used for WOC 2007.
Morning:
The long test race was on a much greener map than the other areas we have been training on and that presented more technically challenging legs. Once again, we were able to place amongst the other nations which was a good confidence boost for the British athletes.
Afternoon:
We made use of the hotel spa for well-deserved recovery :)
Evening:
Some of the team struggled in the lower visibility terrain in the long distance so we discussed how to best to orienteer in the terrain. We then looked at the JWOC middle area and thought about how we would tackle a few tricky legs.
Morning:
The final test race of the weekend was a middle distance on the same area as the long. It was a very challenging course with the majority in slow, low visibility forest. Many of the team had trouble navigating but it was useful to have this practice before the real competition.
Afternoon:
The team travelled home - better informed about the JWOC terrain and excited to come back to race in less than 4 weeks time.
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Photo credits: Rona Lindsay