UPDATE: A detailed email from a contact has pointed out that the last time the Male National Champion trophy was seen was when it was presented to Andrew Johns at Shropshire in '98. He didn't want to take it back to Switzerland and it got passed on for safe return to the BTA... How come you saw a picture of last year's champion, Marc Jenkins, holding it at Brighton? Because he was actually holding the Female one that Jodie Swallow let him borrow for the photos! Ah, so we do know where the Female one is then - in Jodie's trophy cabinet! Well, at least we hope that's where it is... As for the Male trophy, that's still missing and being hunted down.

A chance remark during a conversation about age groupers and trophies and a couple of enquiries later we think we might have uncovered a bit of a puzzle. At the BTA Awards Dinner we had both the National Champions; Richard Stannard and Jodie Swallow, present but neither were presented with any form of award or trophy for their efforts in this regard. At the time it didn't register but on reflection this seems very odd. I've asked Richard about this and he said that he had asked around about a trophy after Salford but there didn't seem to be one and Jasmine Flatters can't remember the BTA bringing anything other than medals to the presentation ceremony at Salford. Norman Brook doesn't know anything about trophies either, and nobody had suggested that they ought to have been presented at the Awards Dinner either.

So, can anyone out there remember from previous years whether trophies or awards have been presented to the National Champions - either at the championship event or at the awards dinner? If there aren't any trophies then it seems a pretty poor show and if there are trophies then where are they and why doesn't anyone seem to know anything about them?