A ROSS High School pupil will represent Great Britain at the European Youth Orienteering Championships this week.

Emily Atkinson will fly to Poland as part of the team at the prestigious event, which gets under way on Friday (June 21).

The Pencaitland athlete has enjoyed a run of success at major events since the turn of the year.

In the last two months, Atkinson has won her age category at both the British and Scottish championships and also at the Jan Kjellström Orienteering Festival, the UK’s biggest annual orienteering event.

The most recent success came on May 25 in the Scottish Championships, held near Inverness.

Her club-mate from East Lothian Orienteers, Sheila Strain, also became a Scottish champion.

Orienteering is an outdoor adventure sport that exercises mind and body. The aim is to navigate between checkpoints or controls marked on a special orienteering map. There is no set route, so the skill and fun comes from trying to find the best way to go.

There are two main types of event – sprint races with high speed in complex urban terrain; and forest races, where most of the running is off the paths and through rough and often steep woodlands.

Atkinson, 15, who is in S5 at the Tranent secondary school, is very excited to be representing East Lothian, Scotland and Great Britain when she heads to Szczecin in Poland.

She is also looking forward to volunteering at the World Orienteering Championships, which are taking place in Edinburgh from July 11 to 16.

As well as orienteering with East Lothian Orienteers and for Scotland at Home International fixtures, she runs for Haddington Running Club and represented Ross High and Scottish Schools at the SIAB international cross-country in Liverpool last year.

Paul Reynolds, headteacher at Ross High School, told Courier Sport: “I am incredibly proud of Emily and this achievement.

“Not only is Emily clearly extremely gifted in this area but she is also a brilliant pupil and has a very bright future ahead.

“As a school, we are right behind Emily and wish her all the very best.”

For more information about orienteering locally, visit elo.org.uk