Edinburgh Southern Orienteering Club

JWOC 2022 (part 1)Aguiar da Beira, Portugal, 11-16 July

ESOC junior Rachel Brown was in the GB team at the Junior World Orienteering Championships.

After a 2-year gap, JWOC 2022 was the first international competition that some of the juniors in the GB team had ever been to. There were 6 boys and 6 girls in the team. The event was in Aguiar da Beira, in central Portugal. Unfortunately the weather in Portugal was very hot and dry, leading to extreme risk of forest fires, and the Portuguese government imposed a ban on all forest activities. As no forest races were possible, the Middle, Long and forest Relay events could not take place, and so the JWOC programme was modified at very short notice. The organisers set up an alternative programme – following the Sprint event, there were two different relay races in urban terrain, the first time that JWOC had included the sprint relay format.

Individual Sprint
The sprint event was on Monday 11 July at Carapito, an old village located between 660 and 720 metres above sea level. It’s a typical mountain village with steep narrow streets paved with granite blocks, lots of steps, blind corners, and many interesting route choices.

Mixed Sprint Relay
The sprint relay was on Wednesday 13 July, also at Carapito, and each nation was allowed to enter 2 teams, with running order Woman-Man-Man-Woman. Rachel ran 1st leg in the GB 1 team.

Urban Relay
On Friday 15 July, there was an urban format relay, with two classes (Men and Women), and three legs per class. This was held at Dornelas, a similar mountain village. Rachel ran 2nd leg in the GB 2 team.

Further details about the event, including official results, maps, GPS tracking and videos, are available on the JWOC 2022 website. (See the Sprint JWOC heading.)
There are also some reports on the British Orienteering website:
Sprint
Mixed Sprint Relay

The forest races were postponed until November, with Middle Distance, Relay and Long races on consecutive days. See this news report.

Other entries categorised under: Juniors