Forth Valley Orienteers' James Hammond wins GB's first-ever forest medal at European Youth Championships

Although he's been the dominant junior domestically for Forth Valley Orienteers, with a string of national titles, his international form hasn't matched up for a variety of reasons.

In his first year of eligibility, Team GB wasn't able to send a team due to COVID restrictions. The following year he contracted the virus while at the championship, and last year he struggled in 30 degree temperatures off an early start.

EYOC, which is de-facto the World Championship at under 18 level doesn't feature a seeded start list, but James was favoured this time with a late start out of the random draw in Szczecin, Poland.

Eschewing his normal steady start while he eases into the map, James hit the front on the first checkpoint, and was third of the 112 starters at the first radio control (17.45).

As he returned to the arena at the end of his first loop, he had improved to hold a share of the course lead, but dropped 30 seconds early on his short loop to move back into third again.

Redoubling his effort, he was able to regain the 30 seconds on the very next leg, but, despite a storming finish capped off by a full length dive for the line, he came up agonisingly short, six seconds off the win in 54.35.

Fellow club-mate Scarlett Kelly had a memorable GB debut, as she notched a top 20 place (56.37) in W16 as the best-placed Brit in the field.

It emerged that this was the seventh best run ever by a British W16 at the event, and the best by an athlete on debut, which is remarkable in that Scarlett has only been racing for three years, with no background in running, compared to some of her contemporaries, who have been in the sport since they were toddlers.

Both were handed closing leg duties in the relay, and raced strongly without making an impression on the leaderboard. James was sent out in 21st place for his lap, and managed to gain six places by the end (38.54 for the leg) for an eventual 15th place finish (134.38) .

The race was well stretched out by the time Scarlett took over for her W16 closing leg, and she ran alone to maintain the eighth position (46.32) and hold off a challenge from a Latvia team that gained ten minutes on the leg.

Both are now back in action almost immediately, as Scarlett joins the Scotland junior tour to Sweden, while James barely has time to touch down and celebrate his 18th birthday before he's on the road again to Czechia and the Junior World Championships.