Katie Breed on tour in Norway

Following her performances at the JK and British Championships earlier this year, top W16 Katie Breed was selected to go on tour to Norway this summer. Here she describes the experience.

On Wednesday the 26th July, 16 excited juniors and 6, almost-as-excited coaches, lifted off from Stansted airport, their destination Oslo Torp, and then, the Halden Ski club hut in the middle of extensive, very technical forests somewhere in the hills!

For two weeks, we were put through our paces twice a day, most of us noticeably improving in that time (hopefully anyway!) Some of the exercises included control pick - short legs which we had to take on a bearing; long legs - where we had to find a large feature near to the control and run to it, before slowing down and using the fine navigation techniques that any orienteer would be lost without on Norwegian terrain; and simplification - where we went through the course with a coach beforehand, picking out the main features that we needed to get to the control site without having to stop along the way. Of course, these are only some of the exercises planned to really challenge all of us, even the ones lucky enough to have been before.

I think that the exercise that will be remembered by all at Halden has to be the 'window' exercise, kindly planned on request for one Chris Sellens. A window exercise, for those who don't already know, is when only the area around the control sites is visible - the rest of the map is blacked out. Anyway, Chris navigated perfectly to the first control, where he was told by the coach accompanying him to skip control two and go on to three or four. This was when he realised that both those particular controls appeared to be surrounded by a large lake! So ten minutes after he had set out, Chris came running back to the minibus amidst roars of laughter and clapping, (we had been told what was happening just after he had left!)

We were allowed a half-day's rest on the Tuesday afternoon, when we went to the Svinesund Bridge, (on the borders of Norway and Sweden,) and stocked up on ice cream and chocolate! Almost everyone bought toy mooses, and they became the unofficial tour mascots! Of course, as it was two of the boys' birthdays, (Mark Saunders and Tom Chesters,) us girls couldn't resist buying them each a pair of moose boxer shorts!

After 10 days of training, we went to Oslo for the day, followed by the Norwegian Championships on the Sunday. All the coaches felt that we did extremely well, considering we got almost half of our juniors in the top twenty of each class, (M/W15 and 16,) One performance stood out very clearly though, that of Fiona Berrow, who actually won the W15's class. This was very impressive, and the Norwegian hosts acknowledged it by presenting her with a prize, even though her result was non-competitive.

After another day training in Oslo with the Norwegians, we headed back to Halden for the tour Classic Champs and relays. All too soon the tour was almost at an end, and we had one last night of party games, (including the 'train game', and find the pin blindfold, where a boy and a girl had to find a pin that was hidden somewhere on the other's clothing - blindfold!) All in all, a brilliant tour, well organised and in my opinion, a great success, (even if I did come home absolutely worn out!)

For anyone who may be hoping to get onto this tour in the future, do your best because it's well worth it - the orienteering experience and the social side of things. You never know, you may even get the extra coaching from Allan Bogle and Heather Monro which we were lucky enough to receive, although I'm not so sure about Allan's taste in music though - for example the 'Bushman' song from the World Champs years ago which I still haven't managed to get out of my head!