Published 27th April 2011

The weekend was a successful one for many SYO members with 25 podium finishes in total. These are summarised below, but some commentary is given here. In the sprint Jenny Peel had an excellent run to retain here W40 champion title with almost a 90 second lead! Katherine Hall improved on last year's result of 2nd to win her W16 class.The JK was held this past weekend in Northern Ireland for the first time and about 2000 competitors made the journey. Day 1 was a sprint around Stranmillis University College in Belfast. Days 2 and 4 were held at Tyrella South, a complex sand dune area near Newcastle. Day 3 was at Slieve Croob, a large peak north of the Mourne Mountains.

In the individual, Aidan Smith and Charlie Adams both retained their trophies, with convincing leads or over 5 minutes, on the M16 and M45L classes respectively. In W40S Mo Chapman secured 2nd place by narrowly beating fellow club member Jenny Lightfoot by 14 seconds. Mairead Rocke and Adam Bradbury also won their age classes with leads of over 5 minutes.

In the relays, the team of Nick Barrable, Neil Northrop and David Brickhill-Jones secured 3rd place in the JK Trophy by 14 seconds. The girls went one better with Jo Stevenson, Mairaid Rocke and Rachel Elder finishing in 2nd place on the Women's Trophy, on the final leg Rachel went out 17 seconds down on the leader but couldn't overtake Sarah Rollins. Similarly, in the W48- class, Cari Littler, Louise Adams and Katherine Hall had fantastic runs, but a sprint finish was needed by Katherine to achieve 1st place by 3 seconds! However, Martin Ward, Charlie Adams and Bill Edwards managed to win the M120+ class by a comfortable 6 minutes.

Full results here.

Published 11th April 2011

The British Sprint and Middle Championships were held near Brighton this weekend in glorious sunshine. There were 11 SYO members with podium finishes. At the British Sprint Championships at Sussex University, Oli Johnson, Charlie Adams and Katherine Hall all just missed out on 3rd place by a second each. Jenny Peel won by over 2 and a half minutes at the British Middle Championships near Crawley and retained her trophy from last years championships. Podium finishes are summarised below.

Photo top right: Martin Ward running at the British Sprint Championships, photo © Robert Lines.

Photo bottom right: M21 podium at British Middle Championships with Oli Johnson in 3rd and Graham Gristwood in 1st, photo © Robert Lines.

Published 7th April 2011

Last Night's club night was Graham Gristwood's last event as SYO coach before he moves to Sweden. He had planned a special mystery handicap orienteering race which took in the Hallam campus, the Botanical Gardens, Lynwood Gardens and some never used before urban map of Sheffield. There was a mass start at 7:00. All participants went from control to control as directed by paper instructions at each control site. Participants went their own way depending on age, sex, whether they had represented their county and other such criteria. There was an Easter egg for the winner, Kathryn Hall and afterwards we met at Champs for a celebration of his work for SYO over the last 18 months. This was an opportunity to say a big THANK YOU to Graham from the coaching sub-committee, from the SYO committee and from everyone in SYO and probably SHUOC, who has benefited from his coaching leadership over the past 18 months. He has made a big impact and many people have benefited not only from the sessions he has organised and delivered but also from his enthusiasm for the sport which will have rubbed off on many. There aren't many world class orienteers who are prepared to put as much back into the sport as GG has.

We hope GG has enjoyed his time in Sheffield as much as those around him have benefited from his work here and wish him well in Sweden and if the move improves his orienteering as much as it did Steve Hale's we expect he will soon be standing on even more podiums collecting even more medals. Good luck GG from all in SYO and ShUOC!