The sport of Orienteering is going from strength to strength at the school.

Our senior and junior teams regularly finish in the top three in the interschool competitions and several of the individual athletes are in the top 10 rankings of the results so far this year.

The news came through recently that Jeppe has a representative in each of Orientation South Africa’s three national High Performance Squads. Our coach, Carl Holmes, is the Senior Mens group; Tristan Babcock made the Junior Squad; and Rhys Jones is in the Youth Squad.

The three squads will attend a camp in April, after which the teams to compete in the World Championships will be named. Carl Holmes is a regular in the national team and is likely to be chosen for the Senior Mens team. Tristan, unfortunately, is not eligible for selection for the Junior Mens team because he is not a South African citizen.

“It is great that I have been recognised, however,” he told us, “there will be team chosen later in the year for an international event in South Africa and I hope to make that.”

Rhys Jones is the development group and he will be aiming for promotion to the Junior squad.

Tristan began Orienteering when he came to Jeppe in Grade 8 and he immediately took a liking to it. “It is exactly the sort of activity that I love,” he said. “It combines running fitness and ability with the mental challenges of navigating around the course and doing it while you are under pressure and tired.”

His success, clearly, come from being both bright and fast. “At the moment my strength is my running, but that can change from course to course,” he said.