Junior European Championships

I think this is the first time for several years (maybe ever?) that GB have taken a full team to the Junior European Cup. It’s an event for 18s and 20s to compete and tally up points for their country. At the end of the three races – Sprint, Long, Relay – the country with the best total points score wins the cup.

This year it was held around Lommel, Belgium, where the terrain is basically wooded sand dunes. Being flat as Belgium is, I knew I’d have to rely on my compass a lot as there were not so many contours to go by. So when we arrived on Thursday, I went for a half hour jog on the model area (similar to race terrain) test out my navigation on the area which was good, picking off the controls. It was quite nice not to have to run up hills for a change!

Friday afternoon was the sprint so in the morning, some of us walked around the town (it was allowed) to get an idea of what the sprint might be like later on. There were a few paved squares, some schools, parks and usual streets with some alleyways. My aim was just to have a safe sprint and get around in a decent time. Most of it was good but I lost it on number 2 – I ran right past the alley I was meant to go down and ended up at number 3, oops! By the time I had gone there, realised it was wrong and ran back, it had cost me a minute and I saw the Russian girl starting behind me catch up. This and another mistake to 15 meant I was over 2 minutes behind the winner and left me in 31st place.

Saturday’s long distance was 9.3km. I had a non-disastrous run to get around the course in 69minutes which gave me 19th place (winner did 59mins) but there were a few places where I lost a few minutes each like at 5, looking for the not-so-distinctive-tree, and at 7, where I was trying to find a rootstock in a flat, visible, featureless forest and I just couldn’t see it anywhere. It’s not a bad result, I just wish I was higher up!

Then we had the relays on Sunday at ‘De Sahara’! It didn’t quite hold up to its name – we got rained on. Being in a team with Katie Reynolds and Julie Emmerson where we all usually run first leg we had to pick randomly this time so I was the third leg runner. Katie had a storming run to come back 5th then Julie came back 3rd. It was a really fast area so all the times were very close. I was set off just ahead of 2 Danes. I had a bit of a miss to 1 and one of the Danish girls caught up. Then around number 4 I caught up with a Swiss/Norway/Sweden(?) pack up until 7 where they had the same control and I thought it wasn’t quite right but I followed them in anyway and it wasn’t mine. Oh dear. I got mine and continued on around the course with a little mistake at 12 and at 18 just after spectator to come and bring us back in 5th, a very respectable result. It was a really fun area (used for JWOC 1997), and after that we got to go and have more fun at the swimming pool with rapids and various slides before heading off to catch our plane home. Thanks to MWOC and WOA for supporting me on this trip.

Article submitted by Megan Carter-Davies.

NB. Photographs to follow.

10th Nov 14  by Terry Smith

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