The grant I received helped support me in my efforts to get to the Junior World Orienteering Championships in Rauland, Norway this year. The financial support offered by the JFT was greatly appreciated due to the large cost of the trip. Whilst performing in Norway I ran in three races, the sprint, long and relay disciplines. My first race was the sprint race and my very first race at a Junior World Championship. Going into the race I felt confident even though I had a particularly hard year with injuries. I managed to finish in 23rd which was 3 places off the top 20 result that I had aimed for before the race. Even though I was disappointed with my race due to a few navigational mistakes on the course I believe the result was good considering my physical shape was not the best it could of been and I was competing against people a year older who were more developed physically and experienced mentally.

After my sprint race I had a two day wait before the long race in which I unfortunately picked up a stomach problem, this led to a poor performance with me only managing 94th place. The next day I was running in the Relay for the British second team. I ran the second leg for the team and gained around 7 places with a good race even though I only managed four hours sleep and didn’t eat in the morning due to the aforementioned stomach problem. A solid team effort by the second team meant that we in fact beat the British first team, which was our aim, and finish 10th national overall in the relay.

All in all I had suffered a week of ups and downs, with two good performances in the Sprint and Relay but a bad performance in the long. However, I believe the races have helped me gain valued experience in which I can take into next years Junior World Championships in Switzerland. Again, I’d like to thank the JTF for their support this year.