Wow – what a day! More than 60 Sheffield School pupils travelled to Black Park near Slough on Sunday 17^th November and took 26 podium positions across the whole school, age class team and individual competitions at the British Schools Champs!

In the whole school competitions High Storrs lifted the trophy in the large secondary schools competition for the first time while in the primay competition there was a reversal of last year's positions with Hunters Bar taking the top spot with Nether Green in 2nd place.

In the primary age team competitions Hunters Bar won the year 6 girls' trophy while Hallam took 2nd place in the year 5 boys competition. In the secondary team categories, High Storrs took the national title in the year 8, 9 and 10 boys classes and girls' year 12, while the girls in Y8 took 3rd. 

In the Individual categories there was plenty of success for SYO members; well done to:

G6 1^st Ella, 3^rd Alice
B5 2^nd Will P, 3rd Lawrence
B6 3rd Oscar
B7 1^st Robbie
G8 1st  Freya, 2^nd Ciara
B8 3rd James
B9 2nd Jamie, 3rd Leni
G11 2nd Naomi
B10 2nd Matthew M
B11 2nd Max
G12 2nd Alex E
G13 1st Isabelle H

Check out the SYO Facebook Page for photos of the day. Next year’s British Schools Champs will be held on Sunday 15^th November at Wormley Woods near Enfield.

Forty members of SYO braved the long drive to Pippingford Park (and the appropriately named Windy Ridge) in Sussex yesterday to take part in the CSC Final against 9 other clubs from across the country. 

Pippingford Park is a Mole Valley major event favourite having been previously used for the British Night Champs in 2014 and the JK relays in 2017. The area offers varied terrain comprising of wooded valleys and well contoured heathland. Early starters were hampered by bracken and heather but the courses soon sped up with some very quick times posted as the event progressed. Courses were enjoyable and although not particularly technically challenging, plenty made mistakes. A late surge of good results saw us race up the leaderboard into a surprise second place behind Forth Valley Orienteers and ahead of Southdown Orienteers. 

Well done to everyone that competed - you all made a difference - but particular congratulations to our 25 scorers: Pippa, Nick B, Amanda, Alex C, Peter G, Mary, Kim, Dom, Lucy, Martin, Conrad, Charlotte, Pete T, Charlie, Freya, Aidan, Imogen, Alex E, Colin S, Pauline, Mark C, Richard, John, Tom and Sam C.

Next year the final is at Sutton Park on 18th October - put the date in your diary; we need to win that trophy back from Scotland!

The Home Internationals for orienteering are held in September and October, with the relay and individual competitions taking place over 2 days. 

The Senior Home Internationals for M/W20s and 21s were held in early September on complex sand dune areas in South Wales. Nick B and Cat were both selected for the English team and helped England to a 9 point win over Scotland.

Next up was the Veteran Home Internationals for M/W35 to M/W65. This time the English team travelled to Scotland. The six SYO team members selected all performed strongly. On the individual day on the Pentland Hills Kim took 1^st place on W40, Amanda (W45), Lucy (W50) and Nick B (M45) all took 2^nd place and Rachael and Andy P were both 3rd on W35 and M40 respectively. England delivered excellent results over the 2 days resulting in an impressive win overall by 57 points!

The final Home International competition was for the juniors in the M/W14, 16 & 18 age classes, which this year was held in Northern Ireland. Jamie was the only SYO representative but he had a super run to finish 2^nd on the individual day. Unfortunately despite some very good English performances, Scotland’s particularly strong showing in the relays ensured the win for them overall.