Seven intrepid SARUM juniors headed to the Surrey Hills on May 17th to take part in the SCOA/SEOA heat of the Yvette Baker competition (a national, inter-club competition specifically for junior orienteers).
Guildford Orienteers hosted the competition and put on an excellent event at Farley Heath. It was a perfect venue for such an event, with varied terrain including heathland, coniferous forest, some areas of complex contours and a good path network (with some complex junctions to trap the unwary!).
SARUM were in a head-to-head against Dartford Orienteers (DFOK) in the ‘Shield’ competition for smaller clubs. DFOK were 3rd in the national final a couple of years ago, so we knew it wouldn’t be easy, and with the top 5 individual scores counting, there was little room for any mistakes. Fortunately we had a good spread of runners across the age classes and so had representation in 5 of the 8 classes.
The planner did a good job at setting some challenging courses which made good use of the terrain. The Orange course was perhaps a little on hard side as the winning time was over 50 minutes and only 12 of the 17 competitors successfully completed it – but the other courses were all a suitable challenge and our runners seemed to enjoy them.
Once all the competitors were home SARUM had achieved 498 points, just beating DFOK on 495. A big shout-out to Charlotte (Yellow-Girls), Thomas (Yellow-Boys) and Elara (Light Green-Girls) for each securing the win in their respective classes and the maximum 100 points. Isla (Light Green-Girls) and Benji (Green-Boys) and were our other top-5 scorers with 99 points each for their respective second places. Full results are here: Results – Farley Frolic YBT – 17 May 2026 and if you want to see just how nasty that ‘Orange’ course was, check out RouteGadget here 2026-05-17 World O Day / Yvette Baker Heat
Having won this qualifying round, SARUM now has an opportunity to compete in the final in Swansea on July 4th. It’s a bit of a trek, but it would be fantastic if we could muster a team. Our near-neighbours NGOC have won the shield for the past two years – it would be great to give them a run for their money! If any of our junior members would be able to make the trip to Swansea, please contact our captain, Kerry Corkery (captain@sarumo.org.uk). Details of the event can be found here: yb_final_details_v2.pdf