Thank you so much for supporting me whilst competing internationally in the Spanish Duathlon Championships for Clubs. Both the individual sprint and supersprint relays were a great experience – competing in the Elite Category on a technical circuit circuit is perfect preparation for individual nationals at the end of the month. I finished 10th individual and our relay team placed 9th, both promising results for the start of the season.

Lauren

This year’s Junior World Orienteering Championship (JWOC) took an unexpected turn when the Portuguese government announced a total ban on forest access due to extreme risk of forest fire. This obviously had a huge impact on the event with the forest relay, middle and long discipline being postponed to a later date in November. The organisers did an incredible job to put on two additional events in urban areas (mixed sprint relay and sprint relay) to appease the 300 odd orienteers that had just arrived in Aguiar da Beira.

The first sprint individual race was around the intricate and technical village of Carapito – in the sweltering heat of 40C! This was my first international competition and unfortunately the nerves got the best of me making a mistake to the first control, which led to a disappointing result, however, lots of learning points for future competitions.

The mixed sprint relay comprised of 2 females and 2 males. I had a successful, fairly clean run coming back in 17th position in the mix with a few of the Scandinavian teams. The rest of the team had decent runs, resulting in a 16th place finish. This marked the end of the official JWOC races, which left us with a final urban sprint relay through the town of Dornelas (which we had trained on previously). The temperatures again were over 40C, which made the racing tough. I had an ok run having the 17th fastest time on leg 2, however, unfortunately one of my teammates mispunched so our team was disqualified. I was unable to compete in the second forest JWOC competition in November as I broke my scaphoid bone (wrist), falling off my bike in late September . Thank you to the Jack Bloor fund for the support, it is greatly appreciated.

Pippa Carcas

With support from the Jack Bloor fund, I have been able to race my 1st year as an U23 cyclist in Spain. My team, based in Durango (Basque Country), makes an ideal location for training. The region is also home to some of the top level elite/u23 racing in Spain. The main races being the Basque Euskaldun, Basque Lehendakari and the Copa España series.

Racing out in Spain this year has been amazing for my development as a rider. The U23 ranks are important in building experience. If successful this can potentially follow by jumping to the professional ranks.

My team Eiser-Hirumet have been highly supportive in the transition. The jump from Junior to U23 racing has been hard. The main jump being distance of races. From racing for 2.5 hours in the UK, to racing for 4 hours in 40 degree heat.

My first block of racing was tough to start with. Making small goals within each race made it easier to get to grips with. By the time the spring/summer races came round, I was comfortable in the peloton. I was happy to see some strong results coming off the back of my final block.

Overall the entire experience of 2022 has been incredible, on/off the bike. Experiencing both a new culture and type of racing.

Thank you again to the Jack Bloor fund for supporting my development as a rider. With more experience under my belt, I am already buzzing for next year’s racing.

Thank you,

Ben Houlihan

I am so grateful for receiving the Jack Bloor funding this year. It helped fund an International training trip to Europe (Lake Bled, Slovenia). We spend a week running through the hills, getting some good exposure to surfaces I would be racing on later in the year. Having a lake at our disposal was great for recovery swims after a hard day on the slopes. We had great weather, allowing us to train throughout the day, and get a little bit of heat training too! This training helped my summer based, and as I began cross country season I can already see the benefits, as I’m feeling in tip-top shape and ready for championship racing! I want to thank the team at Jack Bloor for their support!

Thank you again,

Emily Field

 

Having spent most of the previous year living in Switzerland, I was really looking forward to racing at the World University Orienteering Championships in the Swiss Jura. Not the typical alpine terrain that first comes to mind when picturing Switzerland, but a challenge nonetheless. 

I had been selected to run three out of five races at this week-long competition, all of which were in the forest, as opposed to the sprint discipline which is usually in an urban setting. This meant I could really focus on my forest orienteering technique leading up to the competition. My preparation was slightly hampered by catching COVID a few weeks before the competition and missing some of my key training races in the build-up. Luckily, I had planned to travel out to Switzerland a few days before the competition to train on relevant areas, test different techniques and come up with a race strategy. 

Having cheered on my teammates running in the individual sprint race the previous day, I was ready to step up to the start line of the long distance race. The terrain consisted mainly of coniferous forest with varying degrees of brambles and brashings underfoot, big forestry tracks and some steep gullies that made for interesting route choice. Despite this area feeling fairly familiar to some areas in the south of England, a momentary lapse in concentration meant I messed up my direction out of a control and proceeded to make a costly parallel error which involved losing a lot of height. Frustrated, I tried to hold it together for the remaining half of the race but always had a nagging feeling of needing to make up time. As many orienteers will appreciate this often forces more mistakes, and for me a very scrappy second half with many smaller time losses. Overall, I was unsatisfied with my performance but tried to use the frustration to fuel my preparation for the middle distance race, my preferred discipline.

The area of the middle distance was much more suited to my strengths. It consisted of a steep slope with lots of limestone rock and contour detail, and lots of controls meaning there were no opportunities to switch off. After a slightly hesitant start into a tricky area of forest with low visibility, I settled into the map and began to find my flow. Following two long uphill legs across an open field I knew a top French runner was closing me down. Keeping a cool head, I managed to stick to my plans and pick off the next set off technical downhill controls, whilst the faster French runner weaved in and out making multiple mistakes. Having got a gap, I reached the arena passage having caught two other competitors, now on my tail. The arena run through was a very steep bank which left me in a fair amount of oxygen debt going into the final loop. I tried to focus on my direction crossing the steep slope however being a few degrees off meant I was much higher than my control and had to drop down. This mistake proved significant and meant I just missed out on at top 20, finishing in 23^rd. Despite being initially annoyed at how close I was to a clean run, there were many positives to take into the relay.

The relay marked the final day of racing, and after a flying start by our first leg runner I was set out in the front group. After leading the first few controls, the group had spread out and split on a routechoice leg. In trying to balance sticking to my own routechoices and keeping the front runners in sight, I began to lose control and take some suboptimal routes. Going through a thick area of forest I found myself running alone and similarly to the long race, a few more scrappy controls meant I had lost some time to the leaders. Luckily our last leg runners managed to claw back some time finishing 7^th nation. 

The week was a brilliant experience and incredible fun, despite some races not going as I had hoped. I connected with many old friends who I haven’t seen since junior competitions pre-covid and met new people from as far as Japan and Hong-Kong. I’ve come away with a renewed motivation for the winter season, and my move to Sweden this September. I hope to be able to focus more of my time on orienteering training so I can be better prepared and more confident going into important international competitions.

A huge thankyou goes to the Jack Bloor Foundation for their continuing support of my Orienteering endeavours. In such an underfunded sport, athletes are responsible for funding the entirety of these competitions, which adds up across the year. Therefore, the Jack Bloor Foundation’s contributions really do make it possible to continue competing at an elite level, for which I am very grateful.

Laura King

Thank you for your support for my Great Britain orienteering trip. I was having so much fun I didn’t want to come home!!! I thoroughly enjoyed two weeks of training with lots of different exercises and activities. Having never been to Scandinavia before the beautiful but complicated Forest’s were difficult to get used to and I’ve certainly improved my map reading skills as a result of the technical terrain. It was exhausting but I made so many new friends that I now see regularly at other events. We did lots of swimming and volleyball as well although safe to say I won’t be making any national volley ball appearances any time soon.

Two weeks in Sweden left me super fit and as a result I came home to win bronze at fell running Junior Home International and gained qualification for the Great Britain mountain running team to run in Thailand at the World mountain running champs!

I am looking forward to upcoming orienteering events such as Junior Inter Regionals in Northern Ireland at which I can put into practice all of my skills learnt out in Sweden! 

Andrew Stemp, Fay Walsh, Paul Pružina – 2-day outdoor first aid training course.

A while ago the Airienteers suggested that we do an outdoor first aid course so that we could help out at their orienteering events and the Jack Bloor Fund kindly agreed to cover part of the costs. We thought this was a great idea as first aid knowledge is very important for outdoor events and we have all needed first aid help in the past! The club organised a two-day course run by Chris Leleux at Blackhills Scout camp near Bingley where we were joined by 10 other orienteers from around the area. The course was a mixture of theory, practical sessions and some outdoor practice where the heavy rain meant we got to experience bad weather conditions.

On the first day we arrived we started off with introductions before covering the basics of first aid. The course was tailored to outdoor situations with a focus on the kind of injuries most likely to come across. Normally we would have gone outside but the constant rain meant we stayed inside practicing on dummies with plenty of tea breaks to keep us going. After a long first day of training, we headed into Bradford to replenish our energies with the biggest naans in Yorkshire!

The second day was more specific to orienteering and we spent time consolidating what we had learnt yesterday. After lunch we went outside to put our skills into practice in more realistic scenarios. We split up into pairs and took turns pretending to be a casualty and a rescuer administering first aid. The cold February weather helped us practice in less than ideal conditions and drove home how important it is to carry sufficient kit and help casualties quickly. At the end of the course, we all qualified with Level 3 awards in outdoor first aid.

A couple of months later we had our first call up as first aiders at the Buck Wood regional event organised by the Airienteers. Fortunately, we had no major incidents except for a couple of people with cuts and scratches so our skills are as yet untested and hopefully will remain so!

Thank you very much to the Jack Bloor Fund for helping with the cost of our outdoor first aid training.

Katherine Whyte – Climbing Wall Instructor Assessment, June 2022, Leeds, England.

In June 2022 I attended my Climbing Wall Instructor (CWI) assessment, following a two day training earlier this year. Achieving the CWI qualification personally feels very fulfilling, the qualification represents my many years of teaching friends, and then coaching within my role on the Leeds University club committee. I am very grateful to the support from the Jack Bloor Fund, which enabled me to become certified.

The assessment day started very chilled, discussing the outcomes of the home paper, before we moved on to the assessment of the coaching and skills based section. Having had multiple years of coaching myself I felt comfortable leading a warm-up, game and technique drill. With hold colour twister followed by a drill on ‘twisting’. Twisting is a tactic that utilises the movement of bringing your left or right hip into the wall by twisting your knees, hence bringing your hips into the wall to improve stability as well as increasing reach. Each taking turns to run our sessions we next moved onto scenarios for teaching top rope climbing and belaying. I was slightly thrown off by the fact my scenario was 8 young offenders, I quickly planned a session that was climbing volume focussed, that kept all parties engaged and involved. We were then assessed on our ability to structure teaching over a longer period of time, coming up with an 8 week plan for some GCSE PE students, who wanted to finish being independent climbers. Having looked online at resources relating to taught curriculums like that for GCSE students as well as NICAS/NIBAS, I was able to come up with a weekly structure that featured a technique development, regular checkpoints and enabled progression within the students. As we approached the end of the day, it was time for rescues and emergent scenarios, to test how well we could ensure the safety of all parties in a changing environment. I was given a collapsed belayer, and someone who’s figure-of-8 knot had come undone on the wall. Having gone over a plethora of scenarios in our training, I aimed to keep a calm demeanour and reassure the parties and deal with the situation quickly and effectively.

I am very happy to say that I, along with two of the other LUUMC committee members passed the assessment and are looking forward to utilising these qualifications, not only to improve the quality of teaching within the climbing club. But, also to continue to foster a love of climbing as I hope to gain some additional coaching specific training in the future, as I aim to add a development team to the competition team I set up this past year within the university club.

Thanks again for all your support, it really is so very appreciated.

Katherine Whyte

Photos:

1 – Running a weekly coaching session with LUUMC

2 – Myself (second left) with the competition team at the third round of the Northern University Bouldering Series, of which one of our girls achieved 3^rd overall.

3 – Training day of the CWI at The Big Depot, Leeds

Kitzbuhel European Cup Write-Up for Jack Bloor

I travelled to Kitzbuhel on June 15th to compete in a European Cup Triathlon event, representing Great Britain and support from the Jack Bloor fund allowed me to fund my travel to the event. The race format was an eliminator- something that I hadn’t done before. Heats took place on the Friday, where the 10 first finishing athletes in each heat qualified to race the following day. Then, the top 30 athletes started the next day, when the format consisted of 3 shorter races. At the end of each, the bottom 10 athletes were eliminated from the competition, until there were 10 in the final race.

The racing was fast, hot, and tough, but I managed to get into the final race and finished 6^th overall, my best senior result ever. Completing 4 races over 2 days provided many opportunities for me to practice race skills such as racing open water with close contact around buoys, transitions and more. The race location was amazing, and I had a great experience, plus, the result means my world ranking went up by over 100 positions, allowing me to get international racing opportunities more easily in the future. Thanks very much for the support, it has made a huge difference 🙂