After recent successes at the British Orienteering championships, local runners from Airienteers have been chosen for Great Britain tours this summer.
Rose Burden from Shipley is to join the U19 Tour to Uppsala in Switzerland in August and Joe Mercer from Skipton, and Ben Stevens from Ilkley will be going on the U-17 Tour to Halden in Norway.
They will all be competing in top-class events as well as receiving coaching as part of Sport England's 'World Class Start' programme.
Scandinavia is the home of orienteering, and the British Federation knows that potential international runners must gain experience in the toughest and most technical terrain.
In addition, Jack Wood and Victoria Stevens, both from Ilkley, will be joining the Under-15 Tour to Lagganlia in Scotland and then taking part in the Scottish Six-Days competition in the Highlands.
Wharfedale is clearly one of the hot-spots in terms of producing excellent orienteers.
Airienteers are fortunate in having Andrew Kelly as one of its members. Andrew is leaving his post as English Development Officer with the British Orient-eering Federation but will continue to provide a programme of coaching for juniors of all abilities which will start in September.
Anyone new to the sport is welcome to join and details can be found on the website at www.aire.org.uk.
Many local runners travelled to the Scottish Orienteering Championships to compete in a series of technically demanding courses.
In the senior competitions Tony Thornley from Ilkley came second in the M55 event, and Sarah Haines, also of Ilkley, was third in the W40 competition.
There were also a number of junior successes with Chloe Haines of Ilkley coming third in W12, Robert Kelly from Menston third in the M12 event, and Hector Haines achieving fourth in the M14 event.
The next local event to be held by Airienteers will be at Penistone Hill, near Howarth on Sunday, June 15. Start times will be from 10.30am. The event will be signposted from Howarth.
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