Welcome to Poland!

They're in Poland!

I got an SMS from Nic today:

"We arrived at 2am last night at the hostel. Spartan. Typical eastern European - with a matron. 1st training done - nice. Food is stodgy - dumplings. Not much chance of internet."

It doesn't sound like we'll be getting regular blog posts from them. They should get some better connectivity during the competition week. I'll try to keep putting the updates here and on facebook.

The racing starts on Sunday with the Sprint

The Team

This year we've got 3 girls, 2 guys and 1 coach heading to Poland. Stephanie, Salome, Sarah and Bradley will be attending their third JWOC. Anthony will be making his debut. Here's some info about the team:

Stephanie Courtnage
Club: WITS OC
Age: 18
Favourite race: Sprint
Best result at JWOC: 63rd - Sprint, Denmark 2010

Salome van Hoepen
Club: RACO
Age: 18
Favourite race: Middle

Sarah Pope
Club: WITS OC
Age: 18
Favourite race: Long

Anthony Stott
Club: WITS OC
Age: 19
Looking forward to the middle race.

Bradley Lund
Club: RACO
Age: 18
Favourite race: Middle
Nickname: Black Mamba or Baby Smurf

Nicholas Mulder (Coach / Manager)
Club: ROC
Experience: 3rd JWOC as Coach, attending his 10th WOC in August

Great Weekend of O'

With less than a week until the JWOC team leaves for Poland it was great to have 4 events in 4 days.

Our Night Event at Wits was a big success! We had 42 cards and most of them were groups. We put a lot of effort into advertising - handing out flyers and having an interview on Wits radio station. It payed off as we had a lots of new people. If the event hadn't been in the middle of exams we're sure we would have had loads more students.

Thank you to everyone who came to the event! We appreciated your support.

The JWOC team had some fine performances at the Gauteng Middle Distance Champs. Brad won the M21 course, Salome and Sarah came 2nd and 3rd respectively in W21 and Ant came 3rd in the M20 category.On Sunday we had fun in a new area. The map was one of the best I've run on in SA but the area was hilly and slow going. The team won 3 medals.

At prize giving Anthony received his SA track-suit and the team got new kit bags. Thanks to Val for organizing the bags. They are awesome (and even have our names on)!

We're wrapping up the finances after another year of fundraising. We've had an extremely successful year! Thanks to Val for all her organising! Thank you to our moms and dads for all their selling and cooking and carrying! And a huge thanks to everyone who supports the tuck shop.Coming soon: Team member profiles and our schedule in Poland.

Fundraising Event - Night O'