The Jack Bloor Fund helped give me the amazing opportunity to attend a GB training camp in Poland to help prepare for the Junior World Orienteering Championships (JWOC), which are being held there next summer. The competition is based in the Lower Silesia region, very near the Czech border!

The camp gave us the opportunity to get a feel for the different terrains across the competition areas. The maps vary greatly, featuring large ridges and valleys for the Long distance, and flatter plains with more intricate rock detail for the Middle and Relay. The organisers of the official competition provided lots of different training opportunities across both types of terrain. We had a lot of fun comparing route choices on the longer legs. To test them, we would head out in groups, with each person picking a different option and starting at the same time. This allowed us to compare speed differences and judge which routes would be faster in the actual competitions. One of the most exciting routes I took involved a huge ski slope where I descended over 200m!

JWOC also includes two sprint disciplines: the individual sprint and the mixed sprint relay. The races next summer will take place in two separate towns, so this week we ran around some similar villages in the surrounding area. Most of the towns featured varying terrain; often, there was a river running through the centre with parkland on either side, leading into complex backstreets and residential areas. This made for both challenging and beautiful training!

The week was incredibly helpful in giving me insight into the terrain. It will also help keep me motivated throughout the winter months as I focus on the selection races in the spring. I greatly appreciate the support that the Jack Bloor Fund continually provides to athletes like myself, allowing us these incredible opportunities to both train and race!

Lagganlia is a yearly orienteering training camp for M/W14, based at Lagganlia near Aviemore. I, along with 23 other athletes had been selected to go to Scotland and have a week full of orienteering training, competitions, activities and a whole load of fun.

On Saturday morning, I woke up ready for a very long train journey up to Aviemore. I met some of the other orienteers on the train up and then we got a minibus to our accommodation. That evening we played a bunch of random (slightly awkward) activities, however it was clear everyone was excited for the week to come and already starting to make friends!

On the first day of training, we woke up quite early and packed our bags ready to head off to the forest. We did some pacing exercises which was quite useful especially as the area (Heathfield) was quite flat. We also did a clock relay, and it was nice to get to know the others in my team (even if someone decided to put our baton (a teddy) in a random spot because they thought the control had been placed wrong!).

The next day was the sprint championships, so we took the minibuses to Spey Valley Resort for the qualifiers. Then for the semis and the finals, we had to move the location to a secret venue because of the nearby forest fires, which turned out to be our accommodation! I messed up on the confusing butterfly loops for the qualifiers, but I won my semi-final and came 4th overall in the final.

On the third day, we headed to the wooded sand dunes of Roseisle where we did our usual training and a distraction exercise in the afternoon. This was one of the highlights of my week because it was fun running around the forest, being chased by people with cameras and speakers blasting music!

The fourth day was my favourite area, North Granish because the terrain was really runnable with intricate contours. In the morning we had drawn our own simplified map, but I lost mine, so I had to use someone else’s! However, it was well drawn, and I ran the course very well with the simplified map! That night we went to Spey Valley Golf Course for some Night O, which was crazy because we were listening to disco music whilst running round the course! Also, the minibuses there and back were full of singing, dancing and glow sticks!

I guess because the area had been amazing the previous day, Loch Vaa on the fifth day was difficult, and it didn’t help that I had nearly left my o shoes at the accommodation! The heather went up to your thighs, and it was impossible to run but I made some very accurate bearings as I was going fairly slow. We did a peg race and with all the heather and the heat it was very tiring!

Finally on the last day of orienteering, we did the Lagganlia Tour Champs in Culbin. It was a nice course, and I tried to use all the skills I had learned in the past week, especially reading contours! I had a mistake on one control where it was frustrating as I had gone very close around it, but I was just not focused. However, the rest of the course was great, and I made some good route choices. We then came back to Lagganlia for our final fun relay.

Throughout the week, we worked in coaching groups where we debriefed and went through our maps together. This was really helpful, as the coaches were able to identify our strengths and weaknesses as well as give us specific feedback on what we needed to improve.

Finally, I would like to thank all the coaches, cooks and staff who helped make the trip possible as well as Jack Bloor for their funding.

Thanks to the Jack Bloor Fund which has helped fund my trip to the World University Triathlon championships in Switzerland The funding helped pay for flights and the entry costs.

With this support I was able to compete with less financial stress and came 35th in the individual race and we came 3rd in the mixed team relay. This was my first international race and podium. This was an incredible experience and I hope to compete more internationally in the future. 

I am so grateful to the Jack Bloor Fund for supporting me through this competition. The fund is deeply appreciated for providing the funding to help young athletes like myself continue to develop and compete at a high level! Thank you!

The World University Championships 2026 were held in Vila Real, Portugal, at the end of July. I was selected to compete for Great Britain within a team of 6 women and 6 men. The competition programme consisted of a Knockout Sprint, Individual Sprint, Mixed Sprint Relay and Middle Race.

The team arrived two days before the competition started to help us get used to the terrain and the heat, which played a big part in the competitions. However, luckily I had spent some time racing and training in the heat before this, so I was used to racing and dealing with these conditions, which make a big impact on your performance.

The first race was the Knockout, which consisted of a qualifier in the morning where 36 athletes qualify to the final rounds in the afternoon. I was really happy with this race, placing 3rd in heat C out of 3 heats, so that secured me a place in the quarter-final. However, my race in the afternoon did not go to plan, with a small navigational error meaning I moved from a qualifying position to 5/6 in the heat, and with a huge hill climb up to the finish, I couldn’t close the gap to 3rd place to qualify, so unfortunately I was knocked out. However, the next day in the Mixed Sprint Relay, I ran 1st leg for GB1 and came back in the front pack, putting the team in a great position for the rest of the relay, so I was really happy with that. We finished 7th as a team.

Next was the Individual Sprint, after a rest day in between to recharge the batteries. This was an incredibly technically demanding sprint race, with many barriers in the terrain to increase the difficulty. At the beginning of the race, I made some small mistakes but then really improved throughout the second half, meaning my final result was 18th, which I was slightly disappointed with, but there were definitely a lot of positives to take.

Finally, there was the Middle Race, where I unfortunately suffered heat exhaustion in 32-degree temperatures and could not continue my race from about halfway through. Stopping was the sensible decision, and I am now recovered. I was just gutted I couldn’t give it my all.

I have a lot of mixed feelings leaving the competition, as I definitely felt that I had more to give throughout the sprint season, but there were so many positives to take.

Lilly and Evie would like to thank the Jack Bloor Fund for all their support in helping them get to the European championships in Madeira at the end of June. They had an amazing time and exceeded all expectations!

Evie…

Biathle… 2nd and team gold

Biathle relay 1st

Triathle 3rd and team gold

Triathle relay 2nd

Laser run 9th

Laser run mixed relay 3rd

Lilly…

Biathle… 4th and team gold

Biathle relay 2nd

Triathle 6th 

Laser run 10th

Laser run gender relay 2nd

Thanks again – the support is always appreciated and makes getting to these events possible!

On the 23rd of April I was finally able to reach the summit of Ama Dablam on my 3rd attempt.

I climbed the mountain solo without climbing partners or sherpas and i free climbed the route which included scaling technical sections such as the Yellow Tower and Grey Couloir.

At 20 years old, I became the youngest person to summit Ama Dablam Solo.

On all three attempts I used skills learnt from my training course supported by the Jack Bloor fund and this time I was able to use these skills to help another mountaineer who was struggling during the descent.

Ama Dablam has tested me both physically and technically but also in decision making.

During my first and second attempt last year I experienced difficult conditions which forced me to turn around just short of the summit but this time I was glad to have low winds and little snowfall which meant when I reached the summit at 11am I could spend 20 minutes gazing at the surrounding Himalayan giants.

This mountain has been my project for a year and a half. I feel very pleased with myself for returning and summiting.

Once again, thank you to the Jack Bloor Fund for supporting me to attend my last Junior World Championships in Germany, Arber. I had some good improvements in my performance from previous years at the championships, especially in the shooting element of biathlon where I was a top 15 overall from the championships. Looking forward to the summer of training ahead before I start my senior career in biathlon.

I was fortunate the receive a very generous funding from the Jack Bloor fund which I used in my recent triathlon event. It was the senior European Cup in Monte Gordo, Portugal. It was my first race back after several years with injuries, university and getting back to training so I was very surprised and pleased to come third!

The race was fast and fun – the swim was initially choppy with waves making it hard to sight well but I managed a good swim coming out 5th. We then had a fab pack of girls working on the bike, extending our lead to around 30 seconds before a fast 5k run.

My result from this race now qualifies me for World Cup level racing later in the season! This would not have been possible without the support and generosity from the Jack Bloor Fund and I am truly grateful.