Junior World Championships 2026
There was a strong local presence at the most important competition on the world junior stage, as five FVO members were involves in the Junior World Orienteering Championships in southern Sweden.
James Hammond and Tommy Rollins were in the GB competition team for the five race event, Mark Nixon and Mairi Eades were amongst the coaches, and Holly Stodgell was on commentary duty.
The opening day’s Sprint competition saw James as the best=placed Briton, as he was 33rd (15.28), while Tommy improved on his previous best at the championship, as he was 65th (16.05). The Mixed Sprint Relay saw James drag GB back into contention, with the sixth-fastest time on leg 3, bringing them from 21st to 10th, but they were run back on the closer, with many nations choosing to rear-stack their teams. The GB III team, with Tommy on leg 3, was 69th.
Action then moved into the forest, and there were contrasting fortunes for the two athletes over the two individual races. The Long race this year was over 15km with the hills included, and James recovered from early sluggishness as he eased into the map to finish 24th (89.09). Tommy was going along well, but punched the wrong control before the long leg and was relegated.
After a well-earned rest day, it was back out for the Middle race, and the roles were reversed. Tommy had another event PB, as he was 72nd (29.23) but James, who was pushing hard for another top 20 place, ran past the penultimate control and didn’t feature in the final results.
The championship concluded with the forest relay, and James redeemed himself for his earlier mistake by posting the 5th quickest split on the men’s relay closer, and dragging GB up an incredible 16 places in the final two km of the course for an eventual 14th place (118.24 composite). Tommy’s luck gave out however, and a mistake midway through his round for GB II had the team in next to last place at the handover, although they were able to improve this to 37th in the end.
There were also spectator races on each day, where team supporters were able to re-run the championship courses after the main action, and Sarah Rollins led W50 with two wins, and 2nd and a 3rd, while Paul Hammond was in mid-table in M50.
Words by Steve Scott (temporarily offline, so this article was posted on his behalf by Brad)