The End

JWOC has come to an end. It has been a fantastic experience for me and, I hope, for all the runners. I think that this year's US team is a great bunch of talented juniors who all have the potential to excel at orienteering in the future. Coming to Europe and racing against the best in the world is no easy task. After being used to winning or finishing in the top three in every race back home, you suddenly find yourself in the bottom third of the results list even with a nearly clean run. This should not be discouraging, but quite the opposite - inspiring. The elite athletes who end up on the podium at JWOC are exactly that - elite athletes. Most of them have trained 8-12 hours a week, 52 weeks a year since they entered their teens in order to get to where they are now. And with the same training and dedication, our athletes can get there too. This is easier said than done, as the European juniors have much better environments for training and racing than their North American counterparts, mostly through an extremely well-developed club structure and having peers to train with and race against every week-end without having to fly across the country. However, it is amazing what a bit of motivation and some hard work can do, and I hope that each of our runners takes some inspiration home from this JWOC and puts in the effort needed in order to improve, both physically and technically, for JWOC '09. And then, next year, I hope to watch as our runners finish ahead of some of those competitors who seemed unbeatable this year.

Once again, I'd like to say that working with the juniors was a great experience for me, and I'd like to thank Janet Porter for giving me the opportunity to do this, as well as Samantha Saeger and Kat Orekhova for being awesome co-team leaders. Thanks!

Finally, the US Junior Team is able to provide support for travel to training camps and competitions for our best juniors thanks to a number of very generous individuals. On behalf of the Junior Team, I would like to thank the following people for having donated to the US juniors over the past year:

James & Millicent Plant
Carol Moran
Shin & Chiori Shimizu
Stan Knight
Sherry Litasi
Nancy Niemann
John Campbell & family
Bob & Beth Lux
James Eagleton
Linda Kohn & Rick Worner
Lt. Col. John Corral
Richard & Dayle Lavine
Karl Ahlswede & family
Jeff Saeger & family
Louis & Jane Pataki
John Harbuck & family
Philip Hawkes-Teeter & family
Stephen & Donna Fluegel
Brett Schwartz
Jimmy Durham
Stephanie & Phil Martineau
Max Suter
Guy Olsen
Robert Wilkison
Walter Siegenthaler
Charles & Linda Ferguson
Larry & Sara Mae Berman
Clark Maxfield
Craig Murray & family
Alexander Izzo
Peter & Susan Goodwin
Peter Zurcher
Chris Whitmyre & family
Kent & Caroline Ringo


- Boris