Forth Valley Orienteers' junior team defend Jamie Stevenson trophy in style

The first psychological blow was struck before the competition even got underway, as a team of more than 40 individuals, possibly the largest ever assembled for this competition, marched into the arena behind co-captains Sam Hunt and Grace Polwart, and there was a buzz amongst the spectators at the depth of the squad this year.

Remarkably, this represents only half of the juniors currently at the disposal of the club, with others ruled out by injury, holidays and being too young to compete alone. The FVO juniors, on their own, represent the 6th biggest club in Scotland, and with most of them having at least one more year of eligibility, things are looking very bright on this front.

However, it wasn't just about throwing out numbers and hoping for the best. Team manager Steve Scott commented post-race “I believe this to be the deepest and most talented group we've had in many years at this level, and was confident that we could gain points in most, if not all, classes. We deliberately back-loaded our potential winners in case we needed points on the board late in the day, but we scored early and kept on scoring throughout the competition”.

Novices Fraser McDonald and Cammy Lockyer opened the entire event, and set a time on Yellow boys of 19.03, which nobody could match, but the girls team stepped up to the mark thereafter with a string of strong races. National champions Hannah Inman (Orange girls – 31.05) and Esme Kelly (Light Green girls – 31.53) added yet another notch to their quiver, while Sophie Edward had a debut win in Yellow girls (22.49), ahead of team-mate Aalya Tijhuis (24.12).

Scarlett Kelly came within seven seconds of making it a clean sweep of wins in the girls classes, but an early two minute error had her chasing the clock and she came in on 44.21 for the silver medal, as the team logged 598 points from a possible 600, second only to MAROC's perfect score of 600 in 2008.

There were some real sterling efforts too that didn't get into the points, but which pushed other clubs down the scoring order. Sam Hunt played a captain's part in Green boys with 5th in a class where some of the other clubs had major strength, while Rebecca Hammond's 5th in Green girls ultimately denied 2nd placed INVOC the points they needed to catch up late in the day.

Matthew Inman took the bronze medal in Light Green boys, beating the Scottish champion on the way, and Eilidh Connor and Katie Niven were prominent in Light Green girls, once again denying the opposition scoring opportunities. James Edward and Esme Finch were just off the podium in the Orange classes, while the Yellow class participants proved to be the backbone of the team, notching nine of the top 13 places in the class.