Promising young GB Team enjoys European Youth Orienteering Championships 2017

The Scottish contingent had a great weekend at the European Champs in central Slovakia over 29th June-2nd July.

At the end of June the summer international competitions kicked off with the European Youth Orienteering Championships (EYOC), based in Banská Bystrica, Slovakia. This competition is for M/W16s and 18s and is usually the first experience of an international competition for our juniors. It’s a great way to get a feel for a different sort of racing environment with an opening ceremony, quarantines and GPS tracking as well as the feeling of donning a GB vest for the first time.

There was a relatively small Great Britain team this year, with Scots making up just over half the team. They were:

  • Eilidh Campbell (MAROC)
  • Grace Molloy (FVO)
  • Freddie Carcas (INT)
  • Finlay Todd (INVOC)

At EYOC there are three races packed into three days: a sprint, a long and a relay. The Scottish contingent had a great weekend, all showing that they could orienteer just as well as the best in their age class.

In the tough hilly and hot sprint Eilidh came an excellent 11th in W16 and Finlay wasn’t far behind, in M18, coming 22nd in a strong field. In the long, Finlay was once again in the top 30 coming 29th with Grace joining him in the top 30: 28th in W18. Rounding off the weekend Freddie had a great run on last leg of the M18 relay battling with Norway, Denmark, Czech Republic and Austria to bring his and Finlay’s (1st leg) team to 8th, tantalisingly close to the podium, just 13s back. Grace Molloy’s W18 team was just behind the boys in 9th and Eilidh, running for the experience in an incomplete W16 team, rounded out the top 10 theme with a 10th place on first leg.

Well done to all, we are looking forward to these guys competing for team GB in the future and seeing what they can do!