Youth League 2021-2022

juniors, youth_league

The 2021-2022 Youth League will start on the 2nd October with the same basic structure and rules as the 2019-2020 season.

To make the events easier for the club to run, all entries and fees must now be made through SI Entries (https://www.sientries.co.uk/ ). It will be possible to have multiple individuals on a single SI Entries account (i.e. all a group’s competitors) and then select which ones are entering a particular event. However, SI entries requires a lot more information per competitor than previously (name, dob, gender, email address, address, phone number, club, school year and youth league group) which would greatly increase the workload of anyone doing a bulk entry (at least on the first time). Thus, it may be preferable that entries are made by parents, and we know some Groups are taking this approach.

For these events we have added School Year and School / Group abbreviation (i.e., SAHS, BWP etc) to the entry system. It is obviously important that Youth League competitors select the correct abbreviation for their group, which for existing groups should be on the drop-down list. By directly collecting this information, the league should be a lot simpler to score.

We will continue to allow juniors to run up (or down) a class and get a 15% time reduction (or 18% increment). Experienced juniors who run for the club can be assumed to have permission to run out of class. Less experienced juniors should obtain permission to run out of class from Jacob, and can be obtained retrospectively for running down.

The reduction for running up is to allow experienced juniors to tackle harder courses (important for their development) without suffering a competitive disadvantage. To run up, it is expected the juniors can competently finish their appropriate age class without assistance. If juniors do run as pairs / groups on a harder course they will score but will not get the time bonuses.

We have allowed the running down as Orange is too hard for older juniors starting off and they can benefit from running Yellow a couple of times. It is expected that they will just do until they are ready to tackle Orange.

Any questions, or suggestions for improvements, please email Jacob. The rules are detailed in full here…

Preliminary Youth League Events

  • 2nd October, Heartwood, Sandridge
  • 6th November, Ellenbrook Fields, Hatfield
  • 4th December, Chipperfield Common, Kings Langley
  • 5th February, Sherrardspark Wood, Welwyn Garden City
  • 12th March, Mardley Heath, Knebworth