Junior Inter-regional Championships (JIRC) 2022
Tyrella, Northern Ireland, 23-25 September
The JIRCs weekend saw 168 juniors and their coaches landing in on the beautiful south Down coast. All the visiting Junior Inter Regional squads received a warm welcome from host club, Lagan Valley Orienteers and the Northern Ireland Juniors.
Results on the www.niorienteering.org website
Generic information about JIRC
Background
The Junior Interregional Championships is an annual competition between the twelve Junior Regional Squads. First organised by YHOA in 1989 the competition is organised in rotation by the 12 Regional Associations.
For many years it took place in late June but has recently changed to the early autumn.
The competition consists of an Individual race on the Saturday followed by a Relay on the Sunday.
An agreed scoring system determines the winner on each day and the overall winner.
Teams
Each region enters a team made up of up to 4 M/W14’s, 16’s and 18’s – a total of 24 athletes. The relay teams are made up of one M/W16 plus one M/W14 plus one M/W18. being 8 teams in all per Region.
Guidelines
Shimna Integrated College (who very kindly stepped in at the last minute to accommodate us) was our base for the weekend in the seaside town of Newcastle. When the squads arrived on the Friday evening they settled down in two large halls filled with camp beds.
Saturday morning arrived quickly and after breakfast the teams were bussed over to the sand dunes of Tyrella within the Ballykinler Army Compound. The juniors battled it out in the individual races on fantastic but challenging courses.
After the days racing the teams had some free time and many took themselves into Newcastle for some hot food and ice cream – the fuel of athletes!
Later in the evening there was a minor military operation to be performed to move all the boys’ beds outside the hall, to allow the Alastair Scott Ceilidh band to set up. A great night of dancing was enjoyed with the juniors never leaving the dance floor except for the ‘interruption’ of the Individual Prize Giving Ceremony.
Individual 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize winners:
M14 Finlay McLuckie (Scotland), Robbie Lightfoot (Yorkshire & Humberside) and Toby Heppell (North West)
M16 James Hammond (Scotland), Tommy Rollins (South Central) and Ruben Razzetti (North West)
M18 Euan Tryner (Yorkshire & Humberside), Ewan Musgrave (Scotland) and Adam Methven (South Central)
W14 Anna Todd (Yorkshire & Humberside), Ella Baxter (Yorkshire & Humberside) and Iona Scott (Scotland).
W16 Freya Tryner (Yorkshire & Humberside), Ruth Gooch (Scotland) and Heather High (South East).
W18 Emily Gibbins (Yorkshire & Humberside), Imogen Pieters (Yorkshire & Humberside), and Isabel Sunley (North West).
The overall Individual Trophy was won by Yorkshire and Humberside with runners up Scotland and the trophy for best performance was awarded to Emily Gibbons (Y&H).
On the Sunday morning the Juniors returned to the sand dunes for a fun morning of relay racing. Although not so sunny and warm as Saturday, the day remained dry and perfect for running, resulting in keen racing and fine performances.
After the races the squads gathered for the prize giving ceremony. The main officials from Lagan Valley Orienteers who hosted the weekend event were the first to receive their awards. The other volunteers and squad coaches were also given a well-deserved round of applause for their efforts for putting on a great event.
The Relay Prize Winners:
Men’s Relay 1st Scotland 2, 2nd Scotland 1 and 3rd South Central 1 Women’s Relay 1st Scotland 1, 2nd Yorkshire and Humberside 1, 3rd South West 1.
Incredibly first and second place in the girl's relay was only separated by 1 second!
The main spoils for the weekend went to two teams - Scotland and Yorkshire & Humberside.
The Individual & Relays Men’s Trophy went to Scotland and the Women’s Trophy was awarded to Yorkshire & Humberside.
The Overall winners and Elsie Ward Trophy went to Scotland.
Scotland, overall winners!
More detailed results can be found on the NI Orienteering website.
I am pleased to report that the tired but happy juniors all made their way back home to their regions safely and smoothly, hopefully with many happy memories of the trip.
Here are a few quotes from visiting squad coaches:
Just a quick note to say a huge thank you on behalf of Yorkshire & Humberside. It was a really high-quality event, and the kids absolutely loved it. Having organised JIRCS in 2019 I know how much hard work goes into it and we didn’t have the headache of dealing with the loss of accommodation and transport arrangements. We really appreciate how hard you worked to find a solution rather than cancelling. I also think the juniors really enjoyed the extra socialising time with it being a 2-night stay.
Many thanks again for a fantastic weekend - great organisation, great events, great atmosphere, great juniors - and NO rain!
Thanks for all your efforts, it was one heck of a weekend. The weekend looked so complicated that it was remarkable that it all worked so smoothly with no major blips, even the airlines seemed to have done everything on time for almost all of us.
Really enjoyed the weekend and all the juniors were a joy. Thanks for all your help with making the weekend work so well.
Thank you, Lagan Valley Orienteers, for hosting this years JIRCs, with the British Sprint and Middle Championships coming to Northern Ireland in May hopefully you will see many of the Juniors return. The JIRCs baton has now been passed onto Wales, good luck with all the planning!
You can also download this report as a PDF with more photos.