Day 3 - Stockhom Cards , Sprint Training

We went for a morning run around the forest on our doorstep to start the day. Before lunch we started using our Stockholm cards, which allow us the use any public transport and enter many museums and attractions for free.

In the evening we ran the regional sprint championship courses, which started about 1.5km from where we're staying. We all ran the right courses for our age.

The two maps below show Alex and Dylan's routes on the H21 course and Craig's route on the H35 course.

ElfvikTraining Day 2 Evening 6pm

On the afternoon of the 9th Martin gave us some courses on the east of our island. Craig and Alex's routes are shown below for the course they did.

The girls all did the D14 course.

Below is a picture of the Lidingo Clubhouse where we are staying.

First Training

Martin gave us two courses from a night orienteering event, starting from the clubhouse. These courses were for M16's! We all (meaning sum of us) managed both courses and found the terrain very interesting.

This is a picture of the map and course, with Dylans route in pink and Alex's route in Blue.
This place is beautiful.

We must thank Martin Terry for all the help he is providing with training and the Lidingo Orienteering Club for hosting us.

Written by Alex edited by Jess H, Jess L and Salome.

We've Arrived!!!

We left OR Tambo at 11 o'clock on Saturday night. We landed at Schipol in Holland at 10.00 on Sunday and finally got to Arlanda Airport in Sweden at about 12.00. Martin Terry met us in Stockholm.
We moved into the Lindingo Orienteering Club house. Martin provided us with maps of the island and we went for a 4km run. On the map shown below, the arrow points to the club house. The pink line is the route we ran.
We stocked up on bread, pasta and cereal. A 500ml Coke is 11SEK and we could get 3 banana's for 14SEK.

The Kit

We were presented with our kit at Gauteng Champs. And it looks very cool...

In the picture above we're wearing our running shirts. They're displaying the following logos:
SAOF, Fujifilm, Meditech, Salomon, Husqvarna and the SA flag.

Here we are wearing our tracksuits. They have the following logos:
SAOF, Meditech and Fujifilm.

Wooden Pot Auction
Thanks to Sam for auctioning the wooden bowl. She did a great job of getting a good price. And thank you to Mrs De Speville for getting the bowl from the artist Chris O'Connell. And thanks to Pieter for buying it.

Thanks to everyone
We can safely say you won't be harassed by Juniors at Orienteering events for a while. Thanks for buying food, drinks, raffle tickets, pots, fudge, brush cutters, flap jacks, tea and coffee. We're privileged.

Gauteng Champs

The Middle Distance Gauteng Champs were held at Moreletta Kloof on Saturday.

W16
This is the most hotly contested of the Junior age groups. The 4 Swedish Squad Juniors had to fight it out for the 3 medals. Sarah had a very good run, winning by 11 minutes.
1st Sarah - 33:16
2nd Jessica Lund - 44:20
3rd Jessica Hemer - 48:36
4th Salome - 48:47












W20
Zoe won the this category. The competition in this class will get more intense next year as the W16's will start to move up.
1st Zoe - 1:00:21

M16
Bradley produced a good performance to win this one. He was on the same course as the W16's (which means Sarah beat him...). Connor Tiegs was 2nd, but isn't coming to Sweden unfortunately.
1st Bradley - 34:59
2nd Connor - 57:09

M20
Dylan won ahead of Michael Bratt. Alex was not there for the middle.
1st Dylan - 35:54
2nd Michael - 1:23:29

M40
Our squad father Richard competed in the veteran category and finished 7th. He was on the same course as Dylan.
7th Richard - 50:42


The Long Distance Champs were held at Gerotek on Sunday.

W16
Sarah completed an excellent weekend by winning again. Jessica Lund was second again and Salome and Jessica Hemer swapped places for 3rd and 4th respectively. The girls won't be competing directly like this in Sweden, because they will be broken up into the D14, D15 and D16 categories. Another Junior who competed on Sunday was Dakota Tiegs. She isn't coming to Sweden, but we hope to see her at more events.
1st Sarah - 52:36
2nd Jessica Lund - 56:01
3rd Salome - 1:03:06
4th Jessica Hemer - 1:05:53
5th Dakota - 2:04:05

W20
Zoe had this category to herself again. She finished with a good performance.
1st Zoe - 1:13:29

M16
Bradley was pushed hard by Connor. This time Bradley won by just 13 seconds! Well done to both of them.
1st Bradley - 1:17:36
2nd Connor - 1:17:49

M20
Alex returned to give Dylan some competition, but Dylan won it convincingly by 6 minutes.
1st Dylan - 1:09:19
2nd Alex - 1:15:42




M40
Richard started very strongly, but looked a bit weary by the end.
9th Richard - 2:11:12


Super-Josh
Joshua De Klerk deserves a mention as a Junior on the way up. He is a lot younger than 12, but tore up the M12 course. Well done!










So...
The Champs showed that all the Junior in the squad are fit and competitive. After 2 weeks of getting used to the Swedish terrain, we can expect some decent performances.

Sponsors
Thanks to all our enthusiastic sponsors. We all really appreciate the help



Audiovision supplies us with an LG TV to raffle

Casio supplied us with a CHR100 HR Monitor watch

Coca Cola provided us with cool drinks to sell at Orienteering events

Fleetwood playgrounds donated a jungle gym to be raffled

Fuji Film provided us with money to buy tracksuits and team kit.

Husqvarna provided us with a brush cutter to sell

Meditech provided us with money to buy tracksuits and team kit

Pick 'n Pay donated ingredients for our catering at Orienteering events

Salomon allowed us to sell their shoes to Orienteers for fundraising. And we compete in Salomon shoes.

The SAOF has been very generous in helping to pay entry fees and costs associated with the trip.

Various Spars around Johannesburg have donated ingredients for catering at Orienteering events.

Suunto has allowed us to sell their compasses to raise funds.