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.
A fascinating women’s Middle distance race built up to an intensely exciting climax, as Swedish Tove Alexandersson chased down Swiss Simona Aebersold’s time on the long run-in from the edge of the forest – and won gold by just 5 seconds.
At the spectator passage Aebersold was 10 seconds the faster, but the decisive leg was the next one where Aebersold chose to avoid a small area of dense forest and use a path, whereas Alexandersson took a more direct route that proved to be some 10 seconds quicker. Alexandersson also had the benefit of running in the later part of the race with Anne Margrethe Hausken Nordberg, who was running slightly more strongly and was sure in navigation, and this coupled with Alexandersson’s renowned strength at the end was enough to bring her a second gold medal in the Championships.
For the young Swiss runner Simona Aebersold, in her first year as a senior, this was one step up from Wednesday – a silver medal to follow her Long distance bronze.
There are two bronze medallists today: Russian Natalia Gemperle and Finn Venla Harju had the same time, 1.45 down on the winning time.
Olav Lundanes, Norway, won his second gold medal of the Championships today with a hard-fought victory by 11 seconds over Sweden’s Gustav Bergman. Norwegian Magne Dæhli made it an excellent day for the home nation in taking the bronze, his first WOC individual medal.
Bergman and Lundanes had very similar times and routes for much of the race, but in the final loop it was Lundanes who held his navigation together best, with Bergman making minor errors but significant in their context, and the win was comfortable in the end.
Both Lucas Basset, France and last starter Matthias Kyburz, Switzerland were in contention for the medals for a long period, Basset particularly impressing with his speed on several sections. Kyburz made a big mistake towards the end, however, and finished outside the top ten. France ended with two podium placings, Basset in fifth and Frederic Tranchand in sixth.
Results: Women
1 Tove Alexandersson Sweden 00:38:20 +00:00:00
2 Simona Aebersold Switzerland 00:38:25 +00:00:05
3 Natalia Gemperle Russian Federaon 00:40:05 +00:01:45
= Venla Harju Finland 00:40:05 +00:01:45
5 Anne Margrethe Hausken Nordberg Norway 00:40:07 +00:01:47
6 Sabine Hauswirth Switzerland 00:40:08 +00:01:48
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21 Megan Carter Davies Great Britain 00:44:17 +00:05:57
24 Jo Shepherd Great Britain 00:44:27 +00:06:07
27 Catherine Taylor Great Britain 00:45:00 +00:06:40
Results: Men
1 Olav Lundanes Norway 00:34:18 +00:00:00
2 Gustav Bergman Sweden 00:34:29 +00:00:11
3 Magne Daehli Norway 00:34:47 +00:00:29
4 Emil Svensk Sweden 00:34:48 +00:00:30
5 Lucas Basset France 00:35:20 +00:01:02
6 Frederic Tranchand France 00:36:09 +00:01:51
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19 Ralph Street Great Britain 00:38:26 +00:04:08
31 Peter Hodkinson Great Britain 00:40:41 +00:06:23
Photo credits: Rob Lines
Today is the last day of the Championships features the Relay today, with the women’s race starting at 16.20 local time (UK time: 15.20) and the men’s at 18.30 (UK time: 17.30).