Simon Harden at JK2024
A lovely team photo accompanies the British Orienteering Announcement of World Champs (WOC) Team.
The team comprises four women and five men. Of the nine runners, three are very experienced at this level, three have one or two previous champs, and three are making their debuts.
Megan Mitchell (7 previous WOCs), Jo Shepherd (6 WOCs) and Grace Molloy (4 WOCs) have many good results in previous championships. Alastair Thomas (2 WOCs), Joshua Dudley (1 WOC) and Fiona Bunn (1 WOC) have been to a Champs before. And many congratulations to those new to this level: Luke Fisher, Simon Harden, and Ben Mitchell.
At this stage it is envisaged Megan and Grace will double up running middle and long (the middle final is the day before the long) and the other athletes will run one or the other.
Six of the team have been selected for World Cup Round 1 Idre Fjäll (which begins with a "shortened long" qualification race on Wednesday 18th June.) Megan, Ben and Fiona are not selected for this World Cup Round, recognising a focus on the World Champs for some athletes.
The Test Races, 7th, 8th June
The World Champs Test Races were used as the principal selection races for the GB Team.
The GB men ran Men-1. Simon had a very good result, 5th position a couple of minutes behind Kasper Fosser. Luke was 21st four minutes down on Fosser, and Joshua and Alastair were 26th and 27th. Ben was 38th. (There were 79 runners in the final results for this class.)
The GB women ran Women-2. Megan was 10th, Grace 12th, Jo 15th and Fiona 23rd (43 completed in this class.)
The GB men ran Men-2. Luke was 17th, Simon 20th, Alastair 22, Ben 26th and Joshua 28th.
The GB women ran Women-1. Grace was 17th, Jo 20th (with a lot of Swiss runners ahead of them.)