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Orienteering
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Junior Regional
Orienteering Squads

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Generic information about Stockholm

Location

The Stockholm training camp is based the club ‘hut’ of OK Ravinen (one of the orienteering clubs based around Stockholm  www4.idrottonline.se/OKRavinen-Orientering). The club hut is in Hellasgården in the Nacka district to the south east and in the suburbs of Stockholm.
It is in the middle of Stockholm’s nearest ‘real forest’ and is easily accessible by public transport. 

Accommodation

Accommodation is in the OK Ravinen club hut. The participants will sleep on the floor in one of two rooms in the building.
The hut is equipped with toilets and showers.
The tour chef prepares all the meals on site and specific dietary needs are catered for. Athletes will be expected to assist with chores during the camp.
There is plenty of space around the hut for outdoor games.

Background

Since the late 1990’s a number of training tours have taken place in Scandinavia with popular venues such as Halden and Uppsalla. These catered for the older age groups and were aimed at providing experience of training and competing in Scandinavian terrain.
With the loss of all junior overseas training tours organised by British Orienteering it was decided in 2011 to organise a camp for M/W17’s based on the OK Ravinen club, thanks to the assistance of Nick Barrable who is a member of that club.
All attendees join OK Ravinen which brings a number of benefits both short and long term. In the short term there is a reduction in the cost of staying in the hut, entry to local races and a free ‘O’ top. In the longer term, many past attendees have used their membership of OK Ravinen to compete in top class Scandinavian competition.

Terrain

As you would expect there is an abundance of top class orienteering terrain within easy access of the hut. The tour makes use of the extensive Stockholm public transport system to get to training areas and competitions in the Stockholm area.

Attendees

The camp is aimed at M/W17’s who have achieved the required standard in the nominated selection races (See Stockholm Selection criteria). It is expected that up to 20 M/W17’s will attend. If insufficient M/W17’s qualify the selectors may add suitable M/W16’s.
In support of the camp there is a Tour Manager (TM) who has responsibility for such things as travel, accommodation, food etc.
The TM is supported by a chef and a Lead Coach. The Lead Coach has a team of up to 6 coaches.

Team Manager's Report

Staff: Nick Barrable SYO, Carol Young RAFO/HH (Chef), Jon Marsden FVO, Tom Fellbaum MDOC, Julie Emmerson OD/UDOC, Duncan Archer CLOK.

After 5 years to Stockholm, and WOC happening on the west coast of Sweden during our usual tour period, it made a nice change to hold the tour somewhere different. Ironically, Halden 2009 tour had competed at the Gränsjakten 2 Days based at the clubhut we used (Jonny Crickmore and Aine McCann won H/D18E respectively!) and Jon Marsden stayed there the following year on an OUOC tour. So it was familiar and I had visited with SJ last September for a site inspection when in the area for Nordic TrailO Meet.

With WMOC being the week before tour started, it meant tour las later in August and we ate into a lot of term time for the Scots, and finished on the White Rose Weekend. (Although they could have made the team relay on the English Bank Holiday Monday!) For the Scots it was good to be home on Sunday evening as it was school the next day.

We had one pre-tour injury of Grace Molloy FVO (at a football tournament in Oslo). The first reserve tried hard to go on tour but gave up but I was impressed by the second reserve Roanne Lilley ECKO sorting out coming out with barely 3 days to go before the start.

The Idefjordens klubhut at Kasen was a WOC training area and Model, so we saw quite a few big names coming to our doorstep. The club has a separate accommodation block consisting of 3 adjacent rooms, 2 x 4 bed and 1 x 2 bed. Ideal for 8 girls and the 2 female staff. In the main building room, we made sleeping areas for the male coaches and athletes with chairs on one side of the room. It meant the boys got much better sleep than the girls as the coaches were on hand to shut them up!

Entries for the WOC spectator races were temporally tiered so I was keen to get cheap entries for all early in the year. This was achieved with some hassle. Communication with the race organisers was poor, and the TrailO race organisers non-existent. (Luckily I knew the planner and communicated via him!). I set up Eventor accounts for GBR1 - 16, made entries and then after selections, had to log back into every account and add names, SI and dates of birth. Somewhat laborious, especially when you forget the password you set up 5 months earlier and have to reset them all one by one!

Elite race entries cost more in Sweden, so the cheap rate was 1200sek for 18E and 900sek for the coaches who all wisely ran H21 for the 6 FootO races. (150 sek/race for the Trail O - no Junior discounts there either!). So much money was saved by doing this, also when the exchange rate was a little more favourable, pre-Brexit vote.

As we were hiring vehicles and space in the club hut was a bit limited, the tour was restricted to 8+8 athletes and 6 staff. This meant 2 x 9 minibuses and a hire car. With one spare seat. Booking vehicles a year in advance and utilising various advantages I am currently afforded, the cost of these, with free upgrade and drivers, was kept as low as possible. Nevertheless, after fuel and parking fees, it was still roughly double the cost of utilising public transport in Stockholm. Public Transport was of course not possible this year, with the club hut being 'out in the sticks' up a dirt track 3km.

Bo Johansson was in charge of Kasen and was very helpful. The hut really could do with some modernisation but worked perfectly well. The water supply he said could run out if were not careful. We made sure we showered at the races when possible and flushed irregularly! The water was slightly brown but very good quality. There was only one sauna and used only on a couple of occasions and attempted to be used once at 0330 am! Putting the sauna on and the oven at the same time caused the fuse to be tripped so it wasn't ideal.

All participants arrived in and out of Göteborg airport. The only incident of note occurred when one athlete left her passport on the first flight on the way home. Luckily someone found it and reunited it with her, still in time to get the next two flights she had to catch to get back that evening.

Next year the tour will be starting the Tuesday after the Scottish 6 Days for 12 days and should have less on an impact on Scottish students. We will also take up to 20 athletes as normal. It directly clashes with Pre-JWOC tour and we are expecting athletes to prioritise that tour, if selected. (This is likely to affect only 1 or 2 athletes). YHJS will also have a tour and use the Ravinen clubhut for a week directly after Stockholm 2017 tour. I will also assist this group. Ravinen will welcome the extra income. (The clubhut currently has a non-functioning dishwasher which we hope might be fixed by next summer and a washing machine which may or may not still be there come the summer.)

The selection policy/process seemed to work smoothly and we selected 16, with 1 late withdrawal, already mentioned. We had a few 'no's which we knew about in advance which was very helpful. Sue Marsden provided the invaluable results excel spreadsheet.

We took 8 girls and 8 boys - with 2 of each being top year 16s - the rest were 1st year 18s.

Washing clothes was limited to hand washing. The weather was generally good, mild, late August weather but there were some down pours. (Unlike last year's Rain Free tour!)

Swimming opportunities were more limited than in Stockholm but a couple of super spots were found.

The same kit as last year was offered from Ethicstar.com and only a limited number of people took the chance to get some. So I dropped some of the printing as they were small numbers. This does greatly reduce the price. The kit didn't have a year on it so is good for any JROS tour! With juniors getting oodles of kit these days, I do wonder if generic JROS kit could be made so we all look the same and there is no need to keep buying more every tour? There could also be a bit of 'handing down kit'...

Injuries were minimal. One athlete came with an issue but seemed to be performing well by the end of the week.

I was surprised that the hut had Wifi. This meant we could watch some of the Olympics but also meant Juniors were glued to their phones quite a bit. It made for a much quieter relaxation time! It was useful of course for start times, event info., splits/results, etc.

Reading my 2015 report I commented on the Juniors having a poor attitude and treating the camp like a Youth Camp rather than a Junior elite training camp. This year were better, maybe helped by them being slightly fewer and thus 'better quality'!? Domestic chores were still 'an effort' for many and wonder if some have ever done anything much to help the daily running of their home household. I do wonder as Juniors go abroad all the time these days, if they have got a bit more blasé about it. So instead of realising their time in Scandinavia is really precious and limited, they don't 'carpe diem' as much as the juniors 20 years ago. In the past, some 'keenies' have really wanted to suck the trip dry of experiences and training. Nowadays, they can just fly back for a weekend next month...

We used flags from the club hut and two coaches brought a few. No SI was used for the training as it was thought they would get enough of SI at the races.

Many thanks to BML who did the printing on waterproof paper.

There were no overall results for the Rocky O Circus (WOC spectator races). As usual, results of the juniors were variable but generally it was the same few doing better than others. Both 18E classes had some top JWOC runners in them so it was very tough, especially for the 16s to get anywhere near the top of the results list. But of course this was not the point of the exercise. It was to experience the terrain, go the distance, and put into practice some of the things they had learnt in the first training part of the tour.

No visits to A&E this year. Nor dentist for that matter.

I was off doing WTOC for some of the week during the day time and I hired a separate car at my expense so I could be free to do this. This worked out reasonably well but I was not allowed from going to the first 2 ROC races as they were in WTOC TempO competition area. It is unlikely this situation will ever happen again!

Overall, another great tour.

For tour programme, cost breakdown and more, see accompanying spreadsheet.

Nick Barrable
Strömstad 2016

Participant Report from Finn Lydon (LEI)

Sweden will forever hold a place in my heart as one of the most beautiful countries ever visited. Not only was the running and orienteering terrain some of the greatest in the world, but the atmosphere and the hospitality of the Swedish crowd, surrounding the World Orienteering Championship events, which were being held the same week, was brilliant.

The 12 day trip to the Stromstad camp, started with a plane ride to Gothenburg airport where all of the coaches and young athletes that got onto the tour, met up. Then for a one and a half hour bus journey from the airport to the Idefjordens SK club hut situated somewhere in the forests of Sweden, only about 2 kilometres from the Sweden/Norway border. By the time we ended up settling down at the hut it was time for bed but in the morning, when the mist had cleared and the sun started to gleam, we got to see the full glory of the surrounding wonder – sublimely runnable woodland with patches of exposed rock which made running through terrain feel like heaven. Surprisingly I don’t think I found a single bramble bush, so felt a little out of place as I’m used to fighting through tonnes of it in local LEI areas.

For the first few days we trained from the club hut. All coaches were very helpful and put extra effort into those who had not ran in Scandinavian terrain before. For the first time, running through the forest it felt like all the features had doubled in size. The crags were no longer little ones that you would find in places like the Outwoods or Beacon, they were the size of houses, the boulders in Sweden made our boulders look like pebbles, and the contour detail was second to none.

After a couple of tough training days, it was time to compete in the ROC races that were staged alongside WOC 2016. There were some beautiful, challenging and fantastic areas that we ran on. The first of which was the Sprint area – Strömsvallen Strömstad. It mixed some high speed urban with fast open hillside, making it tough to always be thinking ahead. The Sprint race results weren’t as planned but we soon realised that the level of competition was higher than that of any English race. After the event we went to watch the final of the men’s and women’s sprint in the centre of Strömstad. The atmosphere was electric and you could feel the buzz of the crowd all around. Looking over the sprint arena was a huge cliff lined with orienteers and spectators all eager to watch the racing.

After all the hard days of spectating, cheering and competing, we would always be fed a good meal back at the club hut. Carol the cook would work tirelessly - alongside walking almost 7 miles a day to keep fit - to produce endless amounts of quality food for the whole group. And after dinner we would all come together to work on our post-race analysis, where we were helped by the coaches and each other to see where we went right or wrong and how to improve our skills for the next race. This would then be followed up by a nightly quiz, where 4 teams would compete to see who has the best general knowledge. Between events we would often go to a lake swimming spot that we had only just found and go for a swim for half an hour, part of our down-time.

The next race was the first of the Middles, Medeldistans – Stromsvallen, which was near the same area as the Sprint. This area was tough technically but fairly good running. After the event we all went back to the Sprint arena – in the same place as the day before – to watch the WOC Mixed Sprint Relay. All athletes and spectators were extremely excited and proud to see GB come in a fantastic 4th position.

The following day we did Trail-O, which is orienteering without the physical part. There is one path which you have to walk up and down on and there are control circles which can have more than one control in them. You have to then decide which control is in the correct place. If you get bored easily, this is probably not the sport for you. After an hour of this you can become somewhat mentally drained but it is great for those who like a challenge. It is also very relaxing if you like to take in the scenery if nothing else.

The next two Middle distance days, Medeldistans - Tanum being the first, went smoothly with both areas being extremely challenging both physically and mentally.

The next rest day from racing, we did a very hard and long training run through tough terrain and then some more Trail-O the following day before the weekend of the two Long races.

Both Long races were pretty gruelling. The first of the two races, Langdistans Buar Stromstad, was super tough as it had some really long legs which truly tested your navigation, map reading and route planning skills. It also meant that you had to trust yourself entirely, so thumbing the map was essential. The second of the two Long races, Langdistans Tanum, was also like this but with much shorter legs. After the first Long, we stayed to watch the men’s and women’ relay. We were so glad to see our boys bringing it home in 4th but still proud of our girls for sticking in there.

After all that it was time to say goodbye at the airport. After 12 days of solid running and having a tonne of fun, we all had to depart our separate ways. The whole 12 days was a brilliant experience and I would recommend this tour to anyone that has a chance to go.

Many thanks to LEI and EMOA for their help with funding towards this trip, it is, as always much appreciated!

Also a big thank you to Nick Barrable and all the brilliant coaches on this trip that made it 12 days to remember!

Selections

Fiona Bunn TVOC
Lucy Haines AIRE
Laura King AIRE
Grace Molloy FVO
Lindsay Robertson CLYDE
Tara Schwarze EBOR
Clare Stansfield FVO
Emma Wilson CLYDE

Freddie Carcas INT
Jake Chapman MAROC
Zac Hudd BOK
Tom Lines ECKO
Finn Lydon LEI
Eddie Narbett BOK
Alasdair Pedley EPOC
Finlay Todd INVOC

Selection Policy

Date

The camp will run from 16th August – 28th August 2016

Eligibility

The Camp is predominantly for M/W17’s born in 1999 but some top M/W16’s born in 2000 may be selected.
Athletes will not be selected for both the Deeside and the Strömstad camps.  

Numbers

The camp will be for a maximum of 16 athletes

Criteria

Athletes wishing to be selected will have achieved the standards set out below in the following races; 
British Night Champs*, 2016 (27th February)
Midland Championships, 2016 (28th February)
JK Day 1*, 2016 (25th March)
JK Day 2, 2016 (26th March)
JK Day 3, 2016 (27th March)
Northern Championships, 2016 (17th April)
British Long Distance Champs, 2016 (30th April)

Standard for selection

Athletes wishing to be selected will probably have achieved 125% or less of the winner’s time as averaged over four of the above races.
*Note that any athlete may count ONLY one of the British Night Champs OR JK Day 1 Sprint towards their average of 4 results for selection. 

Selection process

If there are more than the maximum number for the camp who have achieved the required standard then those with the lowest averages will be selected.
The selector may choose not to fill all available places if there are insufficient qualified athletes. 

The tour selector

The tour athletes will be selected by Nick Barrable (SYO and OK Ravinen) and the selections will be reviewed by the Chairman of Selectors of Junior Regional Orienteering Squads (JROS).

Illness or Injury

All cases of illness or injury which may affect an athlete’s ability to compete in one of the above selection races should be notified in writing to the athlete’s Regional Squad coordinator prior to the running of that race, clearly explaining the reasons for their failure to compete. The Regional Squad coordinator will make the Selector aware of such notifications prior to the race.