Juniors from all over Scotland headed north for this year’s junior interarea competition that took place on the weekend of 26/27th November. The North, East and West fielded their strongest teams and battled it out over a relay on the Saturday and the individual on the Sunday, with West hoping to retain their title from last year.
Last weekend saw a Scottish Junior team make their way to the South West for the Junior Inter Regional Championships. This event takes place every year and sees juniors from all 12 regions of the UK come together to compete for their region but most importantly to socialise with fellow orienteers from their regions and beyond. With over 200 juniors attending and everyone staying in the same location orienteering is on the agenda but catching up on their social life is just as high!
Saturday saw the individual event take place at Mallards Pike in the Forest of Dean. The terrain was runnable with a network of ditches and old mine workings to test their navigation. As is standard the juniors set up camp, got down to face painting to ensure everyone was in the team spirit and provided vocal support to all coming through the spectator control.
The Junior Inter Areas brings together the juniors of all ages to compete for their regions, East, North and West, over a weekend. The weekend begins with a relay competition, where juniors of all ages work together to grab the trophy, followed by an overnight stay for everyone who wishes and then each member of the team works to help their region get the individual event trophy for their region before the points from both events are tallied to see which region takes the overall prize.
This year the event was organised by East Region. The relay event took place at Tulliallan with the help of Forth Valley Orienteers, followed by an overnight stay at Stirling Youth Hostel, and then the individual event took place as part of the last Scottish Orienteering League event of the 2023 hosted by Kingdom of Fife Orienteers at Devilla.
The relay involved some exciting courses and there was lots of team spirit on show . The M14s and W14s went out as first leg runners in the relay followed by the M/W12 age group on second leg and then the M/W 16 and18 age group bringing in the final leg. The top places were shared amongst the regions but West Area came out on top to take the Inter Area Relay Trophy.
