Event spotlight: British Orienteering Championships 2026

British Long Distance Championships 2026

Written by Niall Reynolds (Swansea Bay Orienteering Club)

2026 was the year Swansea Bay was due to host the Welsh Championships, and so when the BOF events committee were looking for a potential host, we put ourselves forward. How much extra work could it be? We had an area booked, a good area, and we had car parking sorted.

The key building blocks were there and so we agreed to share the work amongst our experienced members and run this as a group and I took on the role of coordinating the central tasks, of budgeting, publicity, event information, liaison with BOF and sourcing the equipment and volunteers etc, while Phil Jenkins took on the start operation, Kerina Lake arranged the arena and kids zone, James Clemence sorted parking, Amy Peltor led on enquiries, Anthony Raven took the lead on the safety and Ben Mitchell managed the download and results as well as his Pre-Entries system bring used for managing the entries and start time allocation.

Megan Mitchell took on the planner’s role and we were ably supported by Alan Rosen Controller and David Rosen as IOF Event adviser. I had to put my name down as the nominal organiser but in reality, I was able to leave big chunks of the work to others to work up their detailed plans etc. This made the role more manageable.

Images below: Wendy Carlyle

As a small club we are used to hosting big events, such as Croeso and the JK sprint in 2022 but what I think we were unprepared for was the level of requirements that came through for the Level A event and added to that the IOF requirements for a World Ranking Event. I think we all felt that if British Orienteering wants to spread the work of hosting the major events to include smaller clubs, then they must look at making things more pragmatic and simpler. It just feels very complicated.

As usual our club members rallied to the cause and with some help from others outside the club, we were able to put on a high-quality orienteering event, with an excellent map and great courses on a nicely technical area. We tried to keep the costs down as much as possible and managed to match the entry fees from 2 years ago,.Thankfully for the most part the weather was good and the sun shone, with the only downside being a massive hail shower that hit a lot of the runners high on the hills.

Images below: Rob Lines

All seemed to work smoothly on the day and judging by the feedback from all the emails and messages we have received after the event it seems everyone enjoyed the terrain and the courses and appreciated the work of all the volunteers. The only issue I had is that we couldn’t get the PA system to work for the prize giving despite it working earlier in the day when we tested it.

So, a huge thanks to all our club members most of whom turned out to help. Thanks to all of you for making the way all the way to South Wales and enjoying our fabulous terrain and congratulations to al the winners in both the British and Welsh Championships.

British Long Distance Results

Images below: Rob Lines & Wendy Carlyle

British Relay Championships 2026

Written by Laurence Snowden (South Wales Orienteering Club)

72 hours to go...

Those hidden things competitors hopefully never see…

I often think back to my first real plunge into major orienteering event organising, with CROESO 2024, Day 4.

I can still picture myself standing there on the exposed slopes of Pen Rhiw Wen in the majestic Black Mountains, South Wales. My jaw dropped in a strange mix of pride and disbelief, as streams of bubbling orienteers spilt out of the hired buses onto a rain‑lashed, freezing assembly area.

They’d parked four miles away, and a logistical miracle had ferried them up to this windswept hillside. Only 24 hours earlier, a small, heroic team of volunteers and planners had battled gales and relentless downpours to get controls out and the arena built, complete with an impressive amount of blue barrier fencing as a run-in.

Images below: Wendy Carlyle

I remember feeling absurdly pleased with myself on that preceding afternoon, as I admired my toilets being delivered and everything lined up in perfect military formation.

A huge storm then hit us at dusk. The controller, out doing his last checks, ended up in my campervan, soaked through and shivering (a whisper away from hypothermia, I’m sure). I was only there because I’d been assigned toilet‑guard duty after the club had one stolen at the Welsh Champs.  Who would steal a portaloo?

And those pristine toilets? A single vicious gust toppled two of them, rendering them unusable. The next morning, with one hour to go. I had no tentage, with toilets, tents and barrier fencing strewn across the mountain.

Image below: Wendy Carlyle

Thankfully, an army of enthusiastic Scouts and the first batch of bused competitors saved the day, popping up download and enquiries under miraculous self‑erecting gazebos and realigning the toilets and barrier fencing. Against all odds, in true orienteering comradeship fashion, the event mostly ran without a hitch.  But the memories still flood back on those little hitches:

• of the competitor’s bus that collided with a trader’s vehicle and ended up in a ditch,
• and the competitor who reappeared at dusk, just as we were leaving, wanting to re‑enter the area in pitch black to retrieve a dropped phone.

I was profoundly relieved when CROESO Day 4 finally ended. And yet… here we are again. Either we never learn, or we’re simply too humble, or too daft to say no. 

This time, at least, we’re almost at sea level. With luck, the weather for the 2026 British Relays at Margam Park will be kinder. 

Images below: Rob Lines & Wendy Carlyle

I vowed after CROESO 2024 that next time I’d have more tentage, more toilets, and more time to set up. But even with all that, the behind‑the‑scenes chaos has already begun.

A landowner’s last‑minute withdrawal of their verbal agreement, just two months out, has meant losing the more technical North‑West sliver of woodland to the orienteering map that we really wanted you to experience.

That triggered a chain reaction; with a forced arena move away from the back of the fabulous Margam Castle, which had firmer and drier drained ground, to a more central location on the ‘O’ map. 

Thus to some extent, compromising run‑in through being rivers of mud, fewer spectator controls, and the loss of that lovely historic urban twist we’d promised in the original details.

Images below: Ed Lines

Competitors may never notice. But organisers do. We notice everything, because we want it to be the best possible experience for you.  And this time I’m armed that the friendly spirit of orienteering that binds us together means everything will be okay.

Seventy‑two hours to go. We shall see…

Post blog update…..

Then it happened, what a fantastic day I think you’ve had, albeit a bit ‘boggy & soggy’.  An army of superb volunteers, planners, controllers, contractors & traders got it all prepared for you three days beforehand and put it away swiftly.  My indebted thanks to them and to the lovely staff at Margam Park for kindly hosting us. 

Yes, there were hitches, yes, there are things to note for the future, but I’ll save that for another blog.  However, we managed to park you, process you quickly through the map issue, and around the course laps without resorting to any mini mass starts, and to get you away with the earliest Prizegiving ever recorded.

On behalf of us all in SWOC, we hope you had a great time at the Relays, and we delivered a successful event for this fabulous British Champs weekend. 

Quote of the day was overheard at Enquiries: "People would pay good money for this mud!” - forgetting he did pay!

British Relay Championships 2026 Results