Discussion: Presenting the 2014 US Junior Standing Team!

The Junior Team Executive Steering Committee (JTESC) is thrilled to announce the US Junior Standing Team for 2014! These young women and men will represent the USA at international competitions, and train at a high level for orienteering. They have each committed to 5 hours of physical training per week, at least half of which includes orienteering or navigation. They will participate in training camps and work directly with US Junior Team Coach Erin Schirm, as well as local mentors.

Congratulations to all!

Young Women
Brigitte Bordelon, AOC
Evalin Brautigam, WCOC
Anna Breton, HVO
Elina Breton, HVO
Isabel Bryant, CSU
Addie Nolan, QOC
Melanie Sergiev, GMOC
Katrina Weinmann, COC
Anne Wilkinson, COC
Julia Zielczynska, HVO

Young Men
Zac Barker, DVOA
Addison Bosley, OCIN
Ethan Childs, GMOC
Austin Fowler, GAOC
Connor Frost, GAOC
Will Hubsch, LAOC
Michael Laraia, MNOC
Mathew Rogers, COC
Matej Sebo, BAOC
Hans Sitarz, USMAOC
Matt Stout, GAOC
Noah Van Gorder, GAOC

Note: The female squad has two open slots. We will be recruiting young women into those slots over the next few months, and we encourage clubs to identify promising young women interested in being on the team and having a coach to support their training. Applications are available on the OUSA website-JSTpage. (scroll down)

Guy Olsen
JTESC Chair

Congratulations to all.

Looks like GAOC is strong again on the boys side while HVO is on the girls.

A quick look at the recent GAOC results shows Fowler, Frost, Stout and Van Gorder taking turns beating everyone in the State on their longest courses. I don't know them but I think they all come from the school competition program.
(Sometimes a couple of young men from Florida come up and give them a run for their money but that's about it.)

Noah Van Gorder is the only JROTC among them -- a stand-out indeed.

Connor started as JROTC...

The emergence of 4 juniors, “out of nowhere”, in quite an unexpected place—Georgia—is indeed worth noting, and analyzing. As someone who occasionally observes local meets in that state, here is the main reason I see as why these guys got to this level, against all odds:
Competition. Somehow guys of this age do need to compete and strive to be number one. In GAOC, a very conservative club, they were allowed to practice classical orienteering, and to compete against each other, as opposite to ‘modern approach’, now mainstream in Boston, Toronto and other places, with “teams” of “smiley kids”--using their vocabulary, going to forest holding hands, having happy time, then posting copious reports on FB, with photos of flowers and wildlife, writing essays about their wilderness discoveries, all that nonsense that has recently prevailed in US junior orienteering, and now is being spread around as unquestionable good practice.

Is anyone in a position to check up on yurets and make sure he's taking any medications he's supposed to take? He seems to think that clubs less "conservative" than GAOC are in the habit of forbidding juniors from competing against each other on classical orienteering courses.

Hi Yurets, Thank you for your comments and opinion. It sounds currently that you have a lot of issues with the way the junior program is moving. I would be very interested in talking more via email or by phone about your ideas and opinions. I would be greatly interested to hear why you view what is being done in many places in north america as a simple joy walk through the woods. I would agree with you that the boys in Georgia have gotten better because they have a group that can push each other in competition. I think this is true in any case where there is a group training together.
I would also like to say, this announcement is to congratulate the juniors that made the standing team. I agree that everyone's opinion and ideas should be herd and AP is a great place to do it. Your negative comments about both GAOC and the junior program are not welcome on this thread. Please start a separate thread about critiquing the junior program if you would like to express yourself in this way, or simply express congratulations for the Georgia Boys and the Juniors who made the team. Positive observations and comments are welcome on this thread. Again I would be happy to talk more, my email address is erinschirm@gmail.com. Please remove your post and put it on another thread or change it to a more positive light. Thanks you
Erin

@schirminator:
My comment was not to the OPs announcement, but rather to posts 2, 3, and 4.
I formed my impression about current juniors program by reading latest issues of ONA, to which I subscribe. Particularly i was appalled by the language of those stories, where 17-20 y.o. young adult athletes are routinely refereed to in language used by superintendents in elementary schools.

"Your negative comments about...the junior program are not welcome on this thread...Positive observations and comments are welcome on this thread. "
OMG, you think AP is the kind of kindergarten playground?

BTW, Congratulations to the members of Junior Team!

Can someone post a neutral comment on this thread? And who are the judges?
Please keep AP threads open to all to post what feel they need to post.

Please keep AP threads open to all to post what feel they need to post

And yet you seem to argue against Erin posting what he felt he needed to post. Let us at least strive for logical consistency if we cannot achieve decorum.

well said. I have much to learn.

I have been trying for years, here in Boston as the president of NEOC, to keep the CSU crowd from sending kids into the woods smiling and holding hands, but to no avail.
Keep up the work juniors.

Happy New Year to all. May the new Junior Team have a great 2014.

Relax, jtorranc--I don't think yurets meant conservative in the political sense. Please call off the Gestapo--nothing to see here.

;)

Congratulations 2014 US Junior Team! Well done, and keep on orienteering. Make an effort to stay connected, even if we oldsters annoy the heck out of you sometimes. :)

@j-man - neither did I? What made you think otherwise?

In any case, congratulations to the team, particularly new arrivals on the list. It's nice to see new names, including some I wasn't aware of, and some geographic diversity, if not as much as OUSA should eventually aspire to.

Congratulations juniors! I am impressed at your dedication and commitment to pursuing excellence in orienteering in addition to all the other activities you're involved in. Your self-motivation will take you far and I expect your experiences orienteering will help build a solid foundation for a lifetime full of adventures and challenges. Keep up the good work, build on the positive, and have fun!

Congrats to everyone on the Junior Standing Team!