JK news;
a tough weekend with a good ending for WREKIN.

The JK is a big orienteering event held every year in memory of Jan Kjellstrom, an orienteer form Sweden who made a big impact and helped orienteering get started in Britain in the early 1960s. It involves races over the Easter weekend- a sprint on Good Friday two individual races over the weekend and a relay on the Monday. This year’s event was held in South Wales and the sun shone all weekend. Two WREKIN members played key roles in the event organisation Di Jacks was entry secretary and Adrian Griffiths organised the trophies and prize giving- Thanks and well done to both of them.
In the races Wrekin had success in the relay when Kristof Nowicki, Di Jacks and John Broadhead finished 3rd on the Mixed Ad-hoc class. Kristof also had a successful weekend individually as he finished 2nd overall in the very competitive M40L class.
Other WREKIN participants had varied levels of success. In the Sprint race at Swansea University Adrian Pickles was in second place when he finished but he was 69s behind the winner and slipped  down to 7th place by the end.
The race on Saturday was a middle-distance event at Clydach Terraces near Brynmawr. The terraces are old mine workings covered in heather and bog. This provided very technical navigation and was physically demanding to run through- As well as Kristof Nowicki finishing 2nd on M40L Mike Callow did well and finished 3rd on the M80 course. Everyone else might have had some personal success on our runs but no-one had significant competitive success.
On Sunday the races moved to Pwll du, near Blaenavon, another area of open ground with old mines and spoil heaps covered in challenging vegetation or bog. These were classic, longer distance courses which were navigationally demanding. In a fine performance Kristof finished 3rd. Mike Callow managed 6th place leaving him 5th overall on M80, while John Broadhead and Adrian Pickles were 5th on M60S and M65L respectively; John finished 7th overall on a course against much younger competitors. Adrian pulled up to 9th place after a poor run the day before. Our ladies pair of Sarah Bayliss and Di Jacks both ran consistently over the weekend finishing 20th and 30th overall. Another consistent performer was Tim Kinienwicz with 14th and 15th on M35L placing him 14th overall. Clive Richardson and Tony Callow are both coming back to fitness so both did quite well on Day 1 but found day 2 more challenging. Other WREKIN members- Richard Pay, Eric Heritage and Derek Turner competed either only on one day or on different course each day.
So the main story is about congratulations to our ad-hoc relay team of Kristof, Di and John, a medal from the JK is something to be proud of.
Adrian Pickles
28/04/22
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