No doubt many of you have seen this announcement from the International Orienteering Federation (IOF) on Friday (31 July 2020).
This has meant the cancellation of JWOC 2020 and the replacement of Portugal with Turkey in 2021. Also, EYOC is going ahead, but will be rebranded as EJOC (European Junior Orienteering Championships) and include M/W20's. The precise details of the event have yet to be finalised and the latest notification on the EYOC website states that there will be an update by Saturday 8th August.
So, on this basis, we will continue to look to hold selection races over the August weekend of 28th-30th, as previously notified, for M/W16's-M/W20's and the selection policy for EJOC will be reframed in light of the Hungarian organiser's guidance, in due course. These races will still be used for next season's Talent Squad selection purposes as well.
However, it must be stated that, even though the IOF have given the green light to EYOC/EJOC, there obviously remains significant levels of concern over whether this competition will still go ahead, given the fluctuating nature of Covid19 in both the UK and Europe. We will continue to plan to send a team, but everyone needs to be aware that the situation remains precarious and we will continue to monitor developments in the coming weeks. There will probably be some specific Covid-secure guidelines from the organising body in Hungary, which we will need to react to, and the latest UK government guidance will also need to be adhered to.
Selection Race Update
Having spent much of the past three days working on the final details, we can announce that we will be holding the selection race weekend on 28th-30th August in the Southern Lakes.
The race programme will comprise a sprint in Windermere on Friday late afternoon (starts from approximately 4:30-6pm), a long on Saturday afternoon and a middle on Sunday morning, with both forest races being held on the Graythwaite Estate. Both of these areas are now under embargo until the conclusion of the race weekend.
Entries are now open via SiEntries, with the link here.
The deadline for entries is midnight, Sunday 23rd August. All races will be seeded in accordance with British Orienteering rules and start times based on this process. The details of the race specifics are currently being worked on by the team of organisers, planners and controllers and we hope that provisional details will be published soon.
We will also ensure that all racing will comply with the latest covid-secure guidelines. If athletes are unable to attend the racing weekend for fitness, personal or COVID related reasons, they should contact Paul Murgatroyd (pmurgatroyd@britishorienteering.org.uk) and outline their situation, so that this can be considered by the selection panel.
The races will be used to select for EJOC and the Talent Assessment camp/squad and the final selection policy documents related to this are being worked on currently and should be up on the British Orienteering website by the end of next week.
Paul Murgatroyd
Head Coach for Talent
British Orienteering
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