Pressure on the Junior Squad

[guest]

It looks like almost half of the JWOC team is going to be runners who were not in the Junior Squad this year. Not taking anything away from those runners that have proved themselves to be better than those in the squad, but after having a year of training weekends, camps, and top class coaching, surely the JWOC team should be made up of mostly those in the squad. Is the point of the Junior Squad not to make world class athletes, ultimately in the long run as senior athletes, but with the main aim of the year steered towards JWOC, this year in Lithuania.

This poses the question 'Could some things be done better?' With a lot of the squad getting ill this year is there perhaps too much pressure put on those in the squad leading to overtraining? Is funding used in the best way to get the best out of all the athletes involved?

[Dave]

If there are a few people who haven't been in junior squad selected, my guess is most (if not all) will have been in the Start Squad for the past year and this has the same basic aim as junior squad in providing potential athletes to be competitive at the top level, so I don't think it's down to pressure or the way things are done. It just happens to be that several members of the squad for the past winter have been very unlucky with injury and/or illness.

[Safety]

Maybe the problem is that there isn't enough funding available for the high numbers of a similar high quality standard in the age groups selected for JWOC. Therefore people who didn't quite make the squad work hard at their own training to make it next time and consequently beat member sof the squad to get in the JWOC team.

Is this particularly a problem? I'm sure people who miss out on selection will push themselves hard in effort making it in the future and so ever improving the quality of runners we have available to send to large international events such as JWOC.

[Pingu]

Is there actually a published selection criterium for this squad, and how many people does it take? anyone know?

[Supersaint]

I think that this coul just be because there isn't much of a difference in ability between those just outside the squad and those who are in it. There are only a certain number of places available, and those who just miss out are of a similar ability. People advance at different rates, so those who are just below some people one year will be better the next.

It was certainly good to see a number of different people have good runs at the weekend, shows there are a number of people with good potential.

[Rockaldo]

It looks like almost half of the JWOC team is going to be runners who were not in the Junior Squad this year.

What? All of the team is probably going to be out of the junior sqaud and start squad.

[mharky]

I was going to check that out, but I cannot find a list of who is in the World Class Start Squad anywhere on the BOF website. Am I just being blind, or is it not actually on the BOF website anywhere???

Oh, and out of the 17 people who I think are likely to go, 3 are not in the World Class Programme (Start, Junior Dev. Junior Per.)

[brooner]

http://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/a ... ID=SELECT3

[mharky]

what I want to know is how you get onto that page...

[mharky]

ignore that, I have not worked it out.

The BOF website really does have the worst navigation in the world. Did they pay someone to make it?

[Kitch]

From Mharky's picks on an earlier thread.

Lizzie Adams - Junior Squad
Anne Edwawrds - Start Squad
Tessa Hill - Junior Squad
Rebecca Roberts - Junior Squad
Catherine Taylor
Helen Gardner - Junior Squad

R - Hazel Tant
R - Ruth Holmes - Junior Squad

Oleg Chepelin - Junior Squad
Scott Fraser - Junior Squad
Duncan Coombs - Junior Squad
James Tullie - Junior Squad
Duglas Tullie - Start Squad
Joe Mercer - Junior Squad

R- Hector Haines - Start Squad
R - Iain Embrey

So guest - try not to post rubbish
Any juniors - there are non squad people in there - if you want to make the squad, make the team you can - its up to you.

[Lard]

Wouldn't it be a boring world for all those aspiring non-squaddies if these teams were just purely made up of GB team athletes?

Let's be open about this. Quite a few people outwith the squad have really made an effort this year and the Start guys are really taking the bait.
Big Well Done to them all!

I'd rather the selectors have a hard time because there's so many good people out there than go back to where we were 10 years ago when we couldn't make complete teams.

It's been a great season for Junior O, well done guys!

Lard