British Orienteering is delighted to announce that The Orienteering Foundation has agreed to provide funding of £3,000 per year for the next 3 years to help us facilitate the provision of additional support to young senior elites.

The Performance Pathway Review highlighted the need to help athletes with their junior to senior transition, and this is seen as a key area for attention in supporting our young seniors towards success at senior level.  Athletes in their first few years as seniors are those who no longer benefit from the extensive support provided to the Talent Squad yet are often less established in their international orienteering development. This funding from the Orienteering Foundation is enabling a significant element of the further support identified as a priority for this group, and we are very grateful to them.

In particular, this funding is intended to enable a group of (typically 10-14) aspiring elite athletes to benefit from:

• Monthly collaborative video sessions: sharing training and development ideas, preparing for competitions, expertise from guest speakers
• Opportunities to access additional 1-2-1 support and mentoring
• Provision of coaching support at a development training camp each year

In the first year, we are running the project as a pilot which will be overseen within the existing structure of support provided by British Orienteering.  We anticipate that learning from the pilot will feed in to the approach in subsequent years, alongside the planned changes to the wider British Orienteering Performance Pathway.

We are very pleased to say that Hector Haines and Jo Stevenson have agreed to lead co-ordination of this first year of the project. Both have extensive experience and knowledge of the international orienteering scene, and their involvement will be hugely beneficial.

The project is launching with immediate effect and will encompass the younger seniors from the British Orienteering Senior Squad plus a small number of additional athletes from just outside the squad, where these additional athletes are also in the target age range and not already benefiting from another formal support arrangement.  The senior selection panel have named the following athletes to be the initial participants:

Andrew Evans Chair of The Orienteering Foundation, said:  “I am excited that we are able to partner with British Orienteering to launch this project.  There is a clear opportunity for increased support to the development of athletes in this age group, and we believe this project can make a real difference for them in the transition to senior international competition”