Saturday's Ponderosa urban and sprint races offer fast and furious orienteering through the intricacies of social housing and inner-city parkland and will provide an interesting contrast with Sunday's Northern Champs race at Wharncliffe. The urban race is also part of the UK Urban League and Yorkshire Urban League, while the sprint courses are the opening race in the UK Elite Orienteering League. It’s great to see a large number of entries, and the Elite field in the Men’s and Women’s races is very impressive, with many of the “big names” making an appearance early in their season. The urban event also has courses for beginners who can enter on the day, and it takes place between 12 noon and 2.45pm.

On Sunday the 2019 Northern Championships will take place in Wharncliffe Woods, offering a fabulous chance to orienteer in one of SYO's best orienteering areas with courses planned by former GB orienteers Oli & Jenny Johnson. The area was previously used for the British Championships in 2011 and will provide a significant physical and technical challenge to the country's best orienteers. Races at Wharncliffe normally start and finish at the South end of the area, but this time the event is based at the North end in Deepcar, so competitors will encounter terrain they may not have run on at Wharncliffe previously. This event is the 2nd race in the UK Elite Orienteering League, the 4th race in the UK Orienteering League and is a key selection race for juniors interested in the GB talent squad & JROS summer training camps. Over 800 runners will compete on the Championship courses, but there are colour coded courses (white, yellow, orange & light green) available for non-members and newcomers that can be entered on the day.

More details of both events can be found here: https://www.southyorkshireorienteers.org.uk/events

More details about the UK Orienteering League are available here: http://www.ukorienteeringleague.org.uk/

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British Orienteering would like to take this opportunity to thank South Yorkshire Orienteers for hosting these events and wish all members a great weekend of orienteering in South Yorkshire.