SYO members selected for World Orienteering Championships

Congratulations to SYO members Oli Johnson and Rachael Elder, both selected to run for Great Britain at the World Orienteering Champs this August in Norway.  Oli has been selected for the Long race, and Rach for the Middle distance race.  Former SYO member Matt Crane has also been selected (Middle race), as has SYO Lead Coach Graham Gristwood (Sprint and Middle races).  WOC takes place near Trondheim, from 8th to 15th August. www.woc2010.com

New SYO member is Open British MTBO Champion

Last weekend Ben Plowman, who joined SYO in February and has been a regular at recent club nights, won the long distance MTBO (Mountain Bike Orienteering) British Championships at Mabie, near Dumfries.  Ben won by a comfortable margin, taking 69 minutes for the 15.8km course, with second-place Andrew Windrum taking 74 minutes.

Emily Benham, Killian Lomas and Ben Plowman - 2010 British Champions!
Ben has now been selected for the GB MTBO team and will be riding in the World Champs in Portugal in July.

Harvester Relays win for SYO juniors

SYO's junior team, SYO Kids running amok, won the Junior class and came second on the B course at the Harvester Relays last weekend. Team in running order: Simon Bradbury, Zachary Field, Jake Field, Adam Bradbury and Aidan Smith.

SYO International finished 5th out of 19 on the A course. Team in running order: Martin Ward, Nicholas Lightfoot, Mattias Movmoller, Johan Markstedt, Nick Barrable, Jesper Hansson and Richard Guillaume.

SYO Leftovers finished 13th out of 24 on the B course. Team in running order: Lesley Ward, Wendy Billing, Michael Adams, Paul Bradbury and Dean Field.

For those that don't know, the Harvester Relay starts in the early hours of the morning (this year the A course started at 00:30 and the B course at 02:00) and so the early runners run in the dark and the last runners end up running in the light/dawn.

www.cix.co.uk/~neper/harv2010/index.htm

British Orienteering Training Camp Selections

Congratulations to Simon Bradbury, Zac Field and Aidan Smith for being selected for the British Orienteering Talent Coaching Camp this summer at Badaguish.

Also to Mairead Rocke for being selected for the British Orienteering International Racing Camp this summer in Poland.

Well done also to Katherine Hall, Michael Adams and Jake Field who have been selected for the Regional Squads Coaching Camp.

It is the 2nd year in a row that Zac and Aidan have been selected for a BO training camp and it is the 3rd year in a row that Simon has been selected.

British Orienteering Championships 2010

Many SYO members travelled to the British Orienteering Championships and British Relay Championships 2010 last weekend at Abraham's Valley & Wolseley Park, part of Cannock Chase. The weekend was very successful for many SYO members. Congratulations to all the SYO members who competed at the BOC and BRC, especially those who managed a podium position.

Those who achieved a place in the top 3 are detailed below.

SYO comfortably through first round of CompassSport Cup

The first round was put on by HALO at Scardale and Knapton in North Yorkshire.  SYO won with 2377 points out of a maximum possible of 2462.  AIRE were 2nd with 2274 and also go through to the final at Burbage in October.

The event was enjoyable, the northern woodland has some good orienteering, though the event was slightly marred by the course lengths being wrongly calculated, so 50% longer than expected.  Congratulations to all scorers, particularly those counting for the first time for SYO, who I suspect are Jaimie Buckley, Tony Hall, Dean Field,  Zachary Field, Jake Field and Katherine Hall (let me know if I'm wrong).  The new rules splitting boys and girls on the two junior courses seem much fairer, giving the girls a better chance to score.

Aidan selected to represent GBR at EYOC

Congratulations to Aidan Smith who has been selected to be a member of the Great Britain team at the European Youth Orienteering Champs to be held in Spain from 1st to 4th July.

http://www.eyoc2010.com/

Rach and Oli win elite titles at British Middle Distance champs

On a sunny spring day in the South Lake District, Rachael Elder and Oli Johnson made it an SYO double in the 21 elite classes.  The courses in Haverthwaite Heights were both technically and physically challenging, but Oli reckoned he had lost no more than 10 seconds on his course, putting him about a minute ahead of SYO Club Coach Graham Gristwood in 2nd place.

Lots of other SYO members achieved podium places in other age classes - more results to follow.

JK International Orienteering Weekend

The UK's largest orienteering event of 2010, the Jan Kjellstrom (JK), was held in Devon over the Easter weekend.  Lots of SYO members headed down for the four days of competition, and it was very successful for many (perhaps our best set of results ever?).

Here's a quick summary of SYO members who achieved top-3 placings:

www.jk2010.co.uk 

Scottish Weekend

Last weekend a few devoted SYO members travelled up to Scotland for a series of orienteering events. First up on Saturday was a sprint around the Kings' Buildings at Edinburgh Univeristy. The British Night Championships was also on Saturday at Dreghorn Barracks. This was tough area at night, made even more so by several inches of ground snow, but nonetheless Simon Bradbury and Martin Ward won their classes to become British Night Champions in M16 and M40L respectively. This event was filmed by BBC Scotland. On Sunday there was an event at Gullane Dunes, a lovely Scottish area with detailed contours, the sea on one side and a golf course on the other.

Well done to SYO's new British Night Champions, Simon and Martin, and to all the other SYO members who competed at these events.

British Night Champs results, splits and RouteGadget.