- Home >
- Information >
- Juniors >
- Yvette Baker Shield Final 2024
Yvette Baker Shield Final 2024DFOK Juniors score big at the Yvette Baker Shield Final
On Sunday 7th July, 9 DFOK juniors represented the Klubb in this year’s Yvette Baker Shield competition. They came 3rd out of 8 teams. Read the full report for more details on how they achieved it.
Once we had qualified for the Yvette Baker Shield (YBS) final we realised that we had a good spread of junior orienteers across the 8 competitive courses (4 each for boys and girls) with the results of the best 5 scores contributing to the club’s overall score. This crucial number is the minimum number of scorers required to be truly competitive as each competitive course awards 100 points to the winning junior, then one point less for each successive finisher. So only fielding 4 runners immediately reduces your maximum possible score by 100 points and effectively makes your team uncompetitive. There is further jeopardy in that by mispunching or failing to finish results in a score of 0 points, so to do well in this competition realistically you need a team of at least 6 juniors.
Post qualifier we had a team of 8 runners, with 2 of them, Menna and Isla running together around the yellow course, which is allowed. By the time of the final the girls had grown sufficiently confident to run truly solo thereby doubling our point scoring potential on the Girls Yellow Course. Unfortunately the date of the YBS final clashed with Luke’s important Duke of Edinburgh expedition, however his brother Jake (who missed the qualifier) was available to join us and I reached out to ex-member Iona to see if she would like to join the team for the final, which she did and this enabled us to cover off the Girls Orange course and another opportunity to score in a category we had not been able to in the qualifying round. We therefore had a team of 9 juniors able to score points in 6 of the 8 possible scoring categories.
Having qualified early for the final we had several months to improve the orienteering skills of our juniors, as 4 of them were still being shadowed right up until the final itself where they would have to be able to do it all for themselves and I know that much training was undertaken by them prior to the final.
When details of the competing teams were released a couple of weeks before the final, we discovered we were up against 7 other teams from around the country. Unfortunately 3 of these teams could not muster the minimum 5 runners required to take advantage of all the points available. We were third largest team being just pipped by Cleveland (CLOK) and Swansea Bay (SBOC) who both had 10 runners. However both these teams could only cover 6 of the 8 possible scoring categories just like ourselves so it was all set up to have the potential to be a close run race.
Come the day of the final the weather forecast was overcast with showers, possibly heavy. The junior final started at 12.30 so as to allow time for those teams travelling from distant regions, but beforehand there was an open event on similar courses for those adults able to start before 12 noon. I wanted to run in order to assess the difficulty of the area and to provide the juniors with last minute tips and advice on what to expect of the terrain, however I missed my proposed start time due to horrendous traffic on the M25 and by the time I started my course it was raining and halfway round it turned torrential and thundery. Being completely soaked I aborted my run halfway round and went to the start to see the juniors start their own runs still in torrential rain with thunder and lighting flashing all around.
Unperturbed by these awful conditions they all turned up and set off. Unfortunately I had just missed young Joseph, but managed to shout my words of wisdom to Jake just after he’d started. My advice to them all was to keep in close contact with the map rather than worry about speed, as getting lost could be easy and relocating would be tricky. Not sure how much help that was to them, but as a coach it’s all you can do.
When I got to the start itself Isla was just about to run, but once I had seen everyone set off she was there at the finish when I arrived and had had a fantastic run. All her hard work in training had paid off scoring an amazing 99 points for the team. Vadim and Tomas stormed round the light green course achieving a 1,2 finish earning the team 199 points. Maddy had a solid run for 98 points and late starter Adam also had a great run in a competitive category scoring 97 points. But everyone of the team had brilliant runs too, all getting round cleanly and everybody scoring. Our minimum scorers got 95 points, meaning that there were just 5 faster runners in front of them. A really amazing team result all round.
Just 4 points separated the top 4 teams with North Gloucester (NGOC) winning with just 5 runners, followed by Swansea Bay (SBOC) and then us, beating off Cleveland (CLOK) in what is the closest YBS result in its history. With everyone being soaked not many of the team hung around to receive the 3rd place trophy, but you can see from the faces of those that did that they were well pleased and rightly so.
There is a price for such success as our scoring runners will have to move up a course next year, but those that remain can run the same colour course again, where their extra experience over the year should make them more competitive. Next year’s competition is again being held in our Region courtesy of Southdowns, so we will also have ‘Home’ advantage to help us.
If you know of any juniors who would like to join us so that they can run in next year’s event, now is the best time to sign them up!
Andrew Pitcher. DFOK YBS Team Manager
Links to some photos on Flickr: