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Golden finish in Greece

Huge congratulations to Donatas Tumaitis on an outstanding performance at the European Deaf Orienteering Championships in Greece, held from 13–17 October.

Donatas delivered three impressive performances across the championships. He finished 11th in the Middle Distance on Wednesday, followed that up with an excellent 7th place in the Long Distance on Thursday, and then played a starring role in the Men’s Relay on Saturday.

Competing as part of a three-man Lithuanian team, Donatas took on the first leg and produced a superb run, crossing the line just 8 seconds behind the leader. Mantas Volungevičius then took over on the second leg, moving Lithuania into first place, before Rokas Koveckis extended the advantage on the final leg to secure gold for Lithuania!

After the race, Donatas paid tribute to his coach, Ričardas Tevelis: “Your advice and preparation before the start were incredibly important to me!”

A fantastic achievement for Donatas and the whole Lithuanian team — and what a way to finish the championships!

Winter Training

The first of CHIG’s FREE winter training programme is now booked (subject to licence approval).  Please let Iain Ambler know if you plan to attend and hold this date in your diaries:

When: Saturday 14th November, 1000-1200

Where: Epping SE

What: 3 exercises to revisit aspects of the area, all devised by Luke B: Head to Head, Attack Points, and Long Hops – and potentially a relay team exercise if we get enough interest/participants - we have asked DFOK if they would like to join us for this, as the previous joint events we did were well-received.

 Meet at: The Stubbles car park, Nursery Road, Loughton IG10 4DZ. Parking charge £3 for 2 hours via RingGo. Parking also available in the adjacent parking bays on Connaught Road. 

On the podium

Many congratulations to Philippa Allen for finishing third in the W45 Class of the SE Middle Distance Championships at Hampstead Heath on Sunday 11 October.

Club Champions 2026

This year’s Club Championships were held at Thorndon Park North on 4 October, and the results are listed below. Congratulations to our new Champions!

Details of previous Champions can be found here.

Men’s Open

Champion: Harold Wyber

Runner-up: Nick Harrison

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Men’s Veterans

Champion: Jacob Stevens

Runner-up: Ben Austin

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Men’s Ultra-Veterans

Champion: Ray Weekes

Runner-up: Tony Maycraft

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Women’s Open

Champion: Dominique Lazanski

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Women’s Veterans

Champion: Philippa Allen

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The Mitre is open!

Entries are now open for our flagship event of the year - the Michael Brandon Mitre. The event will be in Epping NW, an area of mostly runnable deciduous woodland on slopes leading up to and including the plateau around High Beach. A full range of courses from White to Black will be on offer, plus a Red course which offers a longer run for less experienced orienteers. You can find full details of the event here.

Special offer!

We have 20 free 2027 adult or family CHIG membership units available to anyone new to orienteering who enters and competes in the Mitre. These are first come, first served. To qualify, you must not have been a member of BOF for the past 4 years.

For an adult this is worth £30 and for a family nearly £70.

Details of how to apply can be found here.

She Who Dares

On National Fitness Day, CHIG introduced orienteering to the She Who Dares group - women of all ages and abilities who meet every Wednesday morning in the Bishops Stortford area to take part in new and exciting sports, activities and adventures.

We laid on three courses for the 21 women who took part, and everyone enjoyed themselves:

• Really good fun - a good walk, but with a challenging purpose. Would definitely do again

• Fabulous fun and very clear. Will be back - thank you!

• Really enjoyed it. Harder than I thought, loved the challenge.

Orienteering is a great way to improve your physical and mental well-being:

• boosts cardio-vascular capacity

• builds strength and agility

• reduces stress by lowering cortisol levels

• improves self-esteem

• is highly social.

Why don’t you give it a try? Get in touch via our website and we’ll help get you started.‍ ‍

SWELL 2026-27 series

The new series for South and West Essex Local League (SWELL) gets underway next month.

The League is run by HAVOC and CHIG, with SOS hosting one or two events each series as well. The events are held on either a Saturday or Sunday between September and June each season.

The programme for this series is as follows:

• Baddow Ridge East - 6 September

• Epping SE - 13 September

• Thorndon Park North - 4 October

• Bedford’s Park - 22 November

• Epping NW - 6 December

• Hadleigh Park - 24 January

• Warlies Park - 14 March

• Thorndon Park South - 4 April

Full details of the series can be found here.

World Championships

Congratulations to Dominique Lazanski for her recent participation in not one but two World Orienteering Championships: the Biathlon in Sweden and the Masters in Poland.

The Biathlon combines orienteering and shooting with a .22 rifle, and this year’s world championships took place in the beautiful rolling countryside and forests of Borås 6-9 August. Dominique took part in all three events - the Sprint, the Relay and the Classic.

A scheduling clash meant that Dominique missed the Sprint event at the Masters in Rzeszow (6-14 August) but she made it through to the W50B finals in the Middle and Long events, where she finished 15th and 34th respectively.

A very demanding but enjoyable schedule - well done Dominique!

Lake District 5 Days

Well done Iain Ambler, Kostya Lutsenko, Alex Lutsenko and Ray Weekes for taking part in the Lakes 5 Days festival of orienteering 2nd to 7th August. 

The weather was "mixed" and some of the courses were very challenging, but there were smiles and a strong sense of achievement at the end!

Orienteering in the Bavarian Forest

Well done to Jacob Stevens for coming 16th in the M50 class at the Bavarian Forest Orienteering festival. More than 650 competitors entered the five day event, and each person’ score was based on their best four days.

Not everyone likes having their photo taken…

Celebration Event

Help up celebrate our 60th Anniversary by coming to our Sprint event in Chigwell School on Saturday 8 August. This is where it all started under the leadership of Michael Brandon, one of the Masters at the school.

There are three courses available, and two rounds of sprints. Bring a picnic and make a day of it! Click here for details

Sprint finish

Well done to the two CHIG teams who competed in Saturday’s British Sprint Relay Championships in Bristol. In the Elite class, CHIGwell fast (Heather Muir, Joe Toller, Harold Wyber) finished 18th, and in the Ad Hoc class Epping Awesome (Iain Ambler, Olly Toller and Tony Maycraft) finished 19th. The full results are available here.

L-R: Tony Maycraft, Harold Wyber, Iain Ambler, Joe Toller, Olly Toller, Heather Muir

Elite course, Leg 1

Dominique’s Danish double

Congratulations to Dominique Lazanski for her double podium finish in this weekend’s Biathlon Championships held in Denmark. On Saturday Dominique finished second in her age group in the Long/Classic, and on Sunday she finished first in the Sprint! The full results are available here.

Dominique after Saturday’s event, on the left

Top of the podium on Sunday

World Cup results

Congratulations to Heather Muir for being selected to represent Australia in the Orienteering World Cup being held in Sweden this weekend. She finished 103rd in the Senior sprints on 30 May and 19th in the mixed sprint Relay on 31 May. Well done Heather - we’re all very proud of you!!

Southern Country Park

On Saturday 30 May we held a "Come and Try It" session in Southern Country Park, Bishops Stortford to introduce the sport to the local community. Twenty people took part, aged between 10 and 73, from a wide range of backgrounds including some runners from Bishops Stortford Running Club. There were four courses to cater for all levels of experience and ability, and it was great to see many participants complete one course and then move on to the next level. Indeed we had some who went from Easy to Medium to Hard: quite an achievement given the very warm weather!

Everyone seemed to enjoy their first taste of orienteering and hopefully we will see some of these new faces again at forthcoming CHIG events.

A big thank you to Tony Maycraft for planning the courses and to all those who helped on the day.

If you missed our event don’t worry - you can still orienteer round Southern Country Park any time you like by using the newly-renovated Permanent Course. You can either print off a map, or download the MapRun app to your phone and it will beep whenever you reach one of the posts. It’s all free - just click here for further information.

Canterbury tales

Well done to Harold Wyber for winning the Mens Open course at the Canterbury City Race Weekend. Harold was first in Saturday’s City race, and second in Sunday’s two Sprints.

There was a good club turnout at the event, with Donatas Tumaitis, Iain Ambler, Jacob Stevens, Thomas Elgood, Joe Toller and Ray Weekes all enjoying the Canterbury sunshine.

The results are available here.

GLOSS Series 2026

GLOSS is a series of races run by the clubs in and around London. There are two courses: the GLOSS course which is about 3½ to 4½ km (with optional extension to around 6 km) and is of moderate navigational difficulty and a ‘Yellow’ course which is about 2km with easier navigation.

There are five races this year, starting with Epsom Downs on 28 June and finishing at Beckenham Place Park on 25 July.

The series includes an inter-club competition for the prestigious London Bus trophy. Each club’s best four events will count towards their series score. The best six handicapped times count towards each club’s event score.

Full details can be found here.

Top of the league

Congratulations to Donatas Tumaitis for topping the 2025-26 Kent Orienteering League on the Blue Course. The League covered ten events, starting with Capstone Country Park on 18 October and ending with Shooter Hill on 16 May. Overall League positions were based on each competitor’s best five scores, and Donatas finished first on Blue with the maximum possible score of 500 points. The Blue course was very closely contested this year, with Donatas’ nearest rival finishing on 499.8 points!

This is the second year in a row that Donatas has claimed the Blue title - what a fantastic achievement!

Full details of the League are avalaible here.

Registration now open

Registration for our 16 June Wanstead Flats event in this year’s London Park Series is now open.

Wanstead Flats is the southernmost portion of Epping Forest. It offers an ideal mix of open grassland for high-speed running combined with a complex path network, patches of woodland, thickets and ponds for technical depth. 

The area has been recently resurveyed, and both long and short courses will use an A3 map at 1:5000.

The event centre is the Holly Tree pub.

Register now by clicking here