Today sees the final international competition of a long summer season for the GB junior squad, as the team makes its way out to Villas-Sur-Ollon, in Switzerland, for the 2018 Junior European Cup.

Fourteen athletes will be running in the three events across the weekend of 5-7 Oct and this year's edition of JEC sees a different format from what is usually provided at this competition, setting a unique challenge for the team. The weekend kicks off on Friday afternoon with a mixed sprint relay, the first of it's kind at the junior international level, with the event base of Villars-sur-Ollon providing the picturesque, mountain-side venue, set at 1300m above sea level in the Rhone valley. Following this, the Saturday race is a middle event held in Monthey forest, again a format not normally seen at JEC, but certainly very familiar to those in the team who have competed at JWOC. Finally, the team take part in a mass start, forked Long race on Col de Bretaye, another novel format for this competition, on the Sunday before departing for home.

The team is a mix of debutants, with Anika Schwarze-Chintapatla and Tom Lines making their maiden appearances in a GB vest, along with those in their second season of international representation, such as Eddie Narbett, Freddie Carcas and Lindsay Robertson, and also with a smattering of athletes who are 'veterans' at this level now, with for instance, Fiona Bunn well into her fifth year of running for Great Britain as a junior orienteer.