We are able to announce the full panels of selectors for 2024. These panels choose the athletes to represent Great Britain at international races.
We are delighted to have been able to attract two well-known and established former WOC and JWOC athletes. Jenny Johnson will sit on the junior selection panel, and Jenny Peel on the senior panel. Both are members of SYO and are active in the development, coaching and support to squads throughout the Performance Programme locally, nationally, and internationally.
Ranald MacDonald has agreed to extend his role as independent scrutineer; a job that sense checks, and if needed challenges, process and fairness-to the senior selections, as well as continuing in this role for the juniors.
Pippa Archer will take her place on both junior and senior panels following her recent appointment as Performance Manager.
We recognise the commitment that these volunteers give back to our sport, and thank them for agreeing to take on these complex and important roles.
How the selector panels work is detailed in the selection policy here.
For completeness, the full panels are for 2024 are:
Seniors
Juniors
Following this weekend's British Orienteering Championships 2024, we spoke to Weekend Coordinator Duncan Archer (Lakeland Orienteering Club) to learn more about the planning process for this year's event and his highlights from the weekend.
Major events like the JK and British Champs rotate round the regions and home nations. NEOA has always been happy to do its bit staging these events about once every 10 years for each of JK and British. We last did the British Long and Relay in 2014, so exactly 10 years later here we are again!
The areas in the North East that are able to accommodate major events are either around the North York Moors (CLOK areas), or in Northumberland (NATO and NN areas), and major events we host tend to alternate between the two. We were originally staging JK 2020 near Whitby, which sadly got cancelled along with many other events due to Covid, and so it was natural to return to similar plans for BOC/BRC in 2024. I was also coordinator for the ill-fated JK 2020, so I decided to take on the role again and hopefully see it through this time (despite the fact we moved to the Lakes in May last year, but most of the coordinator’s role can be done remotely).
Mulgrave Woods was a very early candidate for JK2020 but unavailable due to access. However it became available in 2024 and is excellent for a long distance race with areas of technical detail plus options for longer route choice legs. Hutton Mulgrave and Skelder, which we were also going to use for JK 2020 relays, has a good variety of terrain, with the very best bits of natural woodland offering good running and orienteering challenge, right next to fields for arena and parking – ideal for a relay. We bused competitors on the four longest courses to a remote start in the relay area before a run through to Mulgrave to get the length without too much repetition – a similar concept that was used when the JK was here in 1996. An added bonus was both forests and the long parking were owned by a single landowner which makes life easier.
The biggest challenge was rain and wet underfoot conditions. Through winter this was expected, but it persisted through to the event (where in previous years things have been “fine” by mid-April). It affected many things. Some junior relays needed last minute replanning around forestry work that had more impact on muddy rides than you’d expect. The conditions on the long courses were muddy and heavy going (as well as the hills!). But most notably the parking fields and arenas were very squelchy on both days. More tracking was ordered for long parking the week before the event, and we strongly encouraged car sharing (we also considered busing from remote parking but decided against it). We were hugely indebted to the assistance from Mulgrave Estates for laying tracking, firming up entrances, moving equipment, and being on hand with a tractor and ATV on day 1. Also to Austen Floyd one of the Cleveland Mountain Rescue team members (who were providing first aid cover) who happened to also have a tow truck and kindly offered his services on relay day.
Other challenges? When you are an official at a major event you understand how much goes on behind the scenes, much of which is never apparent to competitors (although some of it sadly is). Just some examples included:
It was a challenge! To put things in perspective – we had 100 volunteers at the long, and 70 at the relay. NEOA has 160 ranked members (a reasonable measure of active orienteers). Do the sums – even if all those orienteers in the North East were to help on one day we still wouldn’t have enough. Compare that with other regions – aside from Wales and Northern Ireland (even fewer orienteers than NEOA!), all other regions have at least 300 ranked members, and the biggest – SWOA, SEOA, NWOA and SOA – have over 600 each.
How did we manage? We pulled together! People helped both days. Some people, particularly team leaders, sacrificed runs (although many volunteers did also run). We had representatives in each of the three open NEOA clubs to drum up support, and our volunteer manager took requirements from organisers, and filled in positions. We also asked participants from outside the region on the entry form if they could help and got over 50 offers which was fantastic (so much so that we ended up not needing them all!).
At the end of the day, most volunteers don’t actually do it for any particular reward or recognition (although we did give helper vouchers to spend at traders at the event), and it is great to see such a spirit of volunteering in the sport. Most people are just happy to do their bit, to balance the countless times they benefit from it.
Standing in a waterlogged part of the long parking field as tracking was going down on Friday I could not understand how this was going to work. And on the Friday night it felt like the calm before the storm. The hard work had been done. No doubt many officials and team leaders were mentally going through their task lists for the next day, but as coordinator there wasn’t a whole lot I could do. So much so that I drafted half of this interview that evening! But I was still very stressed about parking and arena conditions.
Saturday I arrived at 7am. We managed to get traders into creative positions. The parking situation was “managed” through the morning. Competitors started to arrive in the arena, set up tents, have their runs, and everything proceeded as it should! The courses turned out to be challenging and tough – as I believe it should be for the British Championships – and people were coming back exhausted but the vast majority still happy. They were three technical complaints but we handled them according to the process, the results stood, and we got all the prizes presented with the help of special guest Steve Cram.
Sunday it again quickly became evident parking was going to be challenging. Now as coordinator, in theory by the day of the event you should have done your “coordinating”, and the other officials and team leaders should just make it happen. In reality issues come up, and I saw it as my role to just jump in where needed. In the end this involved helping direct the parking as I knew that without getting all the competitors and their cars into the field there would be no meaningful event. We did it, we overcame some challenges mentioned earlier, and the mass starts got under way. Reports from their forest were positive, and careful navigation in the heat of the head to head relay paid off, and the winners were duly crowned.
Orienteering is hugely technical sport with lots of detail to organise. But two things will make or break an event. Firstly what goes on in the forest – plan good courses, get the maps correct, and get the controls in the right place. Secondly the logistics, parking and arenas – assume it will rain, and then rain some more, budget for lots of tracking, and have contingency plans (tow trucks, buying more tracking, etc.). There is much more besides but it will follow and if it doesn’t it isn’t the end of the world.
It is important is to fill your organiser, planner and team leader roles early with your best people, make sure they and their teams are briefed, and then let them do their job. My role as coordinator was to help find some of those people in the first place (I’m hugely grateful to the great team we had), join the dots between them, make sure people remained informed about what else was going on beyond their immediate role, act as the bridge to British Orienteering, and help make judgements on a whole host of questions where the way forward wasn’t obvious. I also covered some things that spanned both days (procuring various services and systems, website, medals, traders, bibs, juries, event programme etc. – several of which could have been done by others, although see previous point about number of volunteers!).
The British Orienteering Championships 2024 continued today, with the Relay Championships taking place in Hutton Mulgrave and Skelder Woods. Well done to all teams who entered and participated - here are the provisional results!
Provisional results for the BOC 2024 Relay Championships are available via this link.
We want to extend our thanks to this year's organiser's North East Orienteering Association for hosting a brilliant event. Special thanks go to Duncan Archer, Weekend Coordinator, and to all planners, organisers and controllers who helped make the event possible.
The next major event is the British Middle Championships 2024 on Saturday 27 April 2024, which is organised by AIRE and will take place at Danefield, Otley.
It is paired with the Northern Championships which will follow on Sunday 28 April at Kilnsey South.
Jennie Taylor Communications Officer at British Orienteering caught up with Anika Schwarze-Chintapatla (Eborienteers) and Stanley Heap (Southdowns Orienteers) who are both athletes in the British Orienteering’s Talent Squad. Both attended the recent Malham technical training camp with the rest of the Talent Squad. Stanley and Anika both kindly agreed prior to attending camp to keep a diary account of their training over the training camp weekend.
Talent Squad
Club: EBOR Orienteering Club
Day 1: Friday 1 December 2017
19:00 |
As the Squad consists of members from all over the country, everyone had a fair journey to make so that we could all arrive together. With this camp taking place in Yorkshire, I had an easy drive to the Field Centre (though a little icy) and arrived with a hot meal awaiting us (Evie, my sister and I), whilst the others arrived on a minibus from the train station. |
21:30 |
Once everyone had arrived safely and had eaten and unpacked, we spent a bit of time previewing and outlining the plans for the weekend ahead, so we were prepared for the exercises in the morning and were all ready to take on the challenges of the next day. After which we had some time to catch up with our friends and relax in the warmth of the fireplace. As we wandered up to our rooms a little way from the Field Centre, we found some of the squad had already been hard at work building a snowman. O-top and all! |
Day 2: |
|
7:45-8:00 |
The snowman had already begun to melt |
9:00 |
An hour in the morning may seem like a bit of a journey… but when you have music blasting in the minibus the whole way there, it flies by! (Shout out to Zac’s Spotify and his mega tunes - featuring ‘Run The World’ by Beyoncé) |
10:30 |
Technical Session 1 – Direction & Distance Judgement Once having arrived in Ilkley Paul lead a preview of the first session we’d be doing that day. Before getting started on the technical exercise, it was important to do a thorough warm-up especially given the cold weather that lead some of us to wear up to 7 layers! After doing some drills to work on our running technique, we were ready to get orienteering…. on a blank map. Blank aside from an empty circle around the control site and the line of our bearing. This, of course, proved difficult at first and lead to a lot of confusion on my part for the first few controls. However, this exercise turned out to be extremely useful and after a couple of courses was no longer too difficult. The exercise was aimed to focus our attention to direction (fine compass bearings) and distance judgment-which was key, particularly in an area like Ilkley Moor. Once we had the blank map nailed, we moved on to allowing ourselves to see the map of the control circle. This next step was particularly helpful for the skill of visualization of the control site. I found that with the circle being the only bit of the map we could see, it forced us to really take in and focus on what we would be seeing when we arrived in the control circle. As someone who often drifts off my bearings, I found that having a coach shadowing me and pointing out key elements of taking a bearing extremely useful – even if it meant having someone ask you what your siting is every step of the way! Finally, we put all that into two longer courses (both still with the Leg of the map blank) to practice and put that new technique into action. It was great to be surrounded by people who are as keen to get the most out of their training as I am. No-one was asking when we’d be done but instead asking what the next exercise would be. In an atmosphere where everyone was focused and analytical, it was much easier to get the most out of each exercise. |
12:00 |
Running around all morning is exhausting so lunch was a well-needed break. We drove up to our next area, where there was a small café and we could buy ourselves a hot drink to warm up. |
13:00 |
Technical Session 2 (as pictured) |
16:30 |
After climbing on rocks (strength and conditioning yeah?) and soaking up the view, we had a Christmassy bus ride back, with Christmas songs featuring in our minibus. By 16:30 we were back at the Malham Field Centre to have showers and a bit of free time before dinner during which we received our new kit. Everyone loved the nice warm fleeces. |
19:00 |
Technical Review Session After a day full of technical training and a lot of learning curves, it was important to reflect on the day’s work. Mark lead a review session, so we could reflect on any mistakes we’d made during the day, what those mistakes were and how to fix them. This was really helpful in terms of learning how to analyze your progress/mistakes and training as this was something I haven’t done in the past. In the Talent Squad, I’ve found there is a large focus not only on the training itself but evaluation of training and the importance of planning your training to specifically improve your areas of weakness. It was really helpful investing time to think about everything we’d been doing post training so that the next morning we could focus even more on things that had gone wrong. It was really interesting to see the range of programmers you can use to help analyze your orienteering online. Just before the end of the review Tara and Niamh ran out of the room without explanation. I was really confused and thought one of them might be sick but luckily, I was surprised by a birthday cake instead which had been wholeheartedly decorated! |
20:00 |
Individual Reviews This was a chance we had to talk individually to a coach about how we were getting on, not just with our personal training but how we were settling in and finding our experience with the squad. This meant that anyone new to the squad like me could ask about anything they didn’t understand in the group review or anything they were unsure of in general. It was really helpful talking through aspects of orienteering one to one and what I could do to get the most out of training opportunities. |
21:30 |
We had plenty of time that evening to chill out together and relax. For some of us that involved playing cards, for others watching YouTube videos and some spent even more time in the orienteering zone, looking at the new specifications for orienteering maps (starting in 2017). By the time we headed up to our rooms the snowman had lost his eyes and was partially melted. :( |
Day 3: |
|
08:00 |
The last we saw of that snowman, he was a sad pile of snow. |
10:30 |
Technical Session 3 – Combination On our final day of training, Pendle Forest Orienteers were kind enough to let us use their event at Tockholes as a training area. There, instead of doing the courses set at the event, the coaches planned us our own course-specific as a follow up to the training we’d done the day before. This meant our map included lots of different exercises, such as corridors, lines, blank maps and contours only. This was my favourite exercise of the weekend as it was orienteering with even more of a challenge. One moment we were navigating through intricate contours and wet marshes and the next moment the map had been blanked out and we were left to rely on our compass. We were always adapting to the next challenge. This variation of techniques and exercises gave us lots of practice in a slightly more race style experience, although as it was training we were still encouraged to redo Legs that didn’t go well and talk through controls with coaches out on the course. Having coaches shadowing us for parts of the course was really helpful as it meant they could see how we were getting on when left to ourselves and give us feedback after we finished or if something went wrong, right then so we could redo it and correct it straight away. |
12:45 |
After finishing our courses and doing a cooldown, we had an individual briefing chat with whichever coach shadowed us on our course to take us through what went well and any mistakes we did. After saying our goodbyes, we set off on our way home. It was a great weekend and I can’t wait for the next one! |
Find out more about the full Talent Squad attending training camp here.
Read Stan Heap's diary account tomorrow here.
The next Talent Squad Training Camp is being held at Blencathra in the Lake District in January 2018.