There was great success for SYO members at the British Individual & Relay Championships in the Lake District this weekend. 

The Individual Championships were held on High Dam - a mixed area of open fells and runnable but steep woodland with extremely intricate contour detail. Courses were very physically and technically challenging, producing worthy British Champions.

Congratulations to the 4 SYO British Champions: Freya (W10), Imogen (W12), Pippa (W20E) and Nick B (M40). There were silver medals for Robbie (M10), Charlie (M50) and Tim T (M55) and bronzes for Peter G (M70) and Jenny P (W45). Lucy (W45), Jamie (M12) and James (M10) all just missed out on a medal in 4th place. Kim Baxter also narrowly missed out on a podium position finishing 5th on W21 Elite (as a W40) less than a minute off 3rd place.

There was also success in the short and B classes. Well done to Ryan 2nd (M18L), Isobel 1st (W16B), Louise A 1st (W20L), Laura G 1st (W21S), Louise P 1st (W35S) and Mo (1st W45S). The results in the W10B for 8 year olds Charlotte, Ella and Alice bode particularly well for the future with SYO taking 1st, 2nd & 3rd!

Day 2 arrived with gorgeous blue skys and bright sunshine to provide perfect relay weather. Summerhouse Knott is an excellent relay venue with intricately contoured woodland for the harder courses and a good path network for the younger junior classes. The relays proved even more fruitful than the individual day with many class wins and podium positions for SYO.

In the mini relay SYO showed the strength of its juniors with 4 teams entered. SYOung Blood (Jamie, Conrad & Imogen) retained the title, with SYO's 2nd team (Robbie, James & Freya) finishing 4th. In the M14 relay SYOungsters (Sam, Max & Euan) overcame older more experienced teams to take an unexpected victory, whilst in the W14 relay SYOh dear (Hannah, Alex C & Alex E) narrowly missed out on a podium position finishing 4th.

In the senior classes it was gold in W40 for SYO Queen Bees (Amanda, Lucy & Jenny P) and silver in M40 for SYO Bee Sting (Andy, Pete T & Nick B). In the M50 class SYOn Fire (Martin, Tim T & Charlie A) took the victory while SYO's 2nd team (Nick L, Bill & Paul T) got the bronze. There was victory for SYO Bees Knees (Aislinn, Pippa & Kim) in the women's premier but the team was later declared non competitive as Aislinn is Australian! 

Over 60 members travelled to the South East to compete in the 50th JK and enjoyed a wonderfully sunny weekend. The JK is the biggest annual competition in the UK which takes place over 4 days every Easter. Competition is tough and those members who achieved podium positions showed they really are the country's best orienteers. 

Day 1 is always the sprint competition, which this year was held at Brunel University. We had 9 medallists - sprint is clearly a discipline that SYO excels at! Congratulations to Robbie (M10), Nick B (M40), Dave P (M50), Freya (W10), Imogen (W12) and Jenny P (W45) who were awarded gold. Well done also to silver medalists Tim (M55) and Dom (M16) and bronze medalist Jeff C (M35).

The results from days 2 & 3 are added together to calculate the results in the overall competition so you need to pull together that perfect run 2 days in a row. This year day 2 was a middle distance race on Ambersham Common, whilst day 3 was a classic (long) race on Holmbush. Congratulations to our JK champions Freya (W10), Nick B (M40) and Tim (M55). Well done also to Imogen who was 2nd on W12 and Cat & Brian who were 3rd on W21E and M75 respectively.

The final day is always the turn of the relays which this year were held at Pippingford Park. Team captain, Tim excelled himself with the team name selections replacing the very boring SYO1, 2, 3 etc with a variety of names mostly along the bee theme, although he refused to call the women's open team SYO Honeys! Yet again there was great success for SYO with victories in the women's open class by SYOn Fire (Aislinn, Pippa & Cat) and the men's vet class by SYO Bee Sting (Charlie, Paul & Tim). There were also bronze medals for the SYO Queen Bees (Amanda, Pauline & Jenny P) in the Senior Women relay and the SYO Mini Bees (Robbie, Oscar & Freya) in the mini relay.

At the British Orienteering AGM, Dom Dakin was given the national award for Young Volunteer of the Year 2016. 

Dom is still only 15, but has planned several events, including the maze for Cliffhanger 2016.  This included email correspondance with council officials who will never have guessed the age of their correspondant.  He also runs the SI for many of the Schools Events.  Congratulations Dom.