craigf – Page 39 – Orienteering Australia

Follow World Championships live via IOF LiveCenter

9 July 2014

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Categories: 2014 Archive, High Performance News

The IOF would like to remind everyone of the LiveCenter service that the IOF has set up. You can follow live GPS tracking, web streaming and arena speaker voice from the World Orienteering Championships here: livecenter.orienteering.org

This is the only way GPS tracking is shown from Italy. To guarantee that you can see the GPS tracking from the start, please buy your week pass in advance. You can buy the tickets here: http://shop.orienteering.org/

Tickets are valid either for one event (eg. middle distance competition), or for the whole week.

All past IOF events that are in Livecenter are freely available.

The address of the LiveCenter is: http://livecenter.orienteering.org/ Any feedback may be sent to livecenter@orienteering.org.

WOC SPRINT RELAY- GREAT RESULT FOR AUSSIE TEAM

8 July 2014

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Wow! How good was that!

Monday evening in the old town section of Trento-Piazza Duomo, was the scene for the first ever WOC Sprint Relay, a format that had divided opinion of the relevance of it as part of the WOC program. After the experience yesterday maybe there will be a different perspective on this format in the future as it was certainly very exciting for the spectators and we hope those of you in Australia who were watching it were just as excited about the event.

The format with the women starting first in a mass start meant that we had 34 women lined up on the start line and they had to navigate their way to the first controls through a very narrow funnel of spectators for over 200m, just like the peloton in the Tour de France. As well there were cafes to be avoided and many locals just wandering around. Rachel Effeney was our first starter and what a great start she had. She was seen to run into the first passage way in third place and held this position until towards the end of her course. Rachel put Australia in a great position coming into the finish in sixth place 14 seconds down on the leader, sending Julian Dent out on the second leg. Julian tried to hold onto some impressive runners around him and had a pretty clean run but just could not maintain the speed required to stay in touch. He handed over to Simon Uppill with the team in 10^th place 50 seconds behind the lead. Simon also had a relatively clean run but just could not maintain the speed to stay in touch. The rain had been threatening all afternoon and after some light rain since the beginning of the race, it started to rain heavily as Simon was running the third leg. Simon handed over to Hanny Allston with the team in equal 12th place but Hanny was not too far behind some runners so we were optimistic that the position could be improved on the last leg. Hanny was running in heavy rain and we were trying to follow her on the GPS in the arena but things were happening so quickly we weren’t sure what was happening. On the run through it was clear Hanny had gained some places and on the long leg in the second part of the course she took a left route choice and the runners around her went right. This turned out to be a good choice as she managed to get in front of the group including Norway. At the end Hanny was in a sprint with the Lithuanian runner for 9^th place. There was a sharp turn into the finish and Hanny was unable to get past. She made up 2 places on the fourth leg- so the team finished a fantastic 10^th place- 2:41 seconds behind the winners Switzerland. There were some very excited team members as well as Australian spectators when Hanny finished in the pouring rain.

The winners of the sprint were the Swiss team of Rahel Friederich, Martin Hubmann, Matthias Kyburz, Judith Wyder who were clear winners after Matthias Kyburz took the lead away from Denmark on the third leg. These two countries were the favourites and were in first and second place throughout the race. With the combination of two big screens showing the live GPS and TV pictures, great commentary from Per Forsberg and also a run through the arena was a very exciting place to be for the duration of the event.

A great day for Australia to be in the top 10 countries in this inaugural sprint relay. The team has a rest day today and are planning for the Long Distance event on Wednesday when we will have Hanny Allston and Vanessa Round in the women’s event and Simon Uppill in the men’s. The long distance will be held in the hills and valleys of Lavarone with stretches of alpine, pine, spruce and beech forest. The terrain is a mix of areas with good visibility, forest with good runnability, and areas where vegetation is more dense and running speed is reduced. The women have a distance of 11km and a winning time of 77 minutes, the men have a distance of 16.4km and a winning time of 97 minutes. The first start for the women will be at 12:00 (20:00 EST) and the men start at 12:50 (20:50 EST). The start interval is 2 minutes and the start order is determined by the athletes World ranking.

What you need to know about the Mixed Sprint Relay

7 July 2014

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So the WOC week is well and truly under way. A very scenic sprint happened in Venice on Saturday. Today saw the opening ceremony in the mountain town of Asiago and tomorrow all eyes will turn to the first ever WOC mixed sprint relay. And what a race it is expected to be.

Here are the details of how this race works. The team consists of 2 women and 2 men, with the women running the first and last leg, which leaves the blokes to run the middle two legs. Each leg will take somewhere around 13 minutes to complete, so the race will be all done and dusted with in hour. Like all sprint races it is expected that the winning team will be just a few seconds in front of the rest, so it is definitely a race not to be missed.

The Australian team will be wearing the number 1 bib, yes that’s right we also hope to keep it at the end of the day. The team will be Rachel Effeney out first, Julian Dent second; Simon Uppill Third and Hanny Allston will bring home the team on the last leg. The team has prepared well and is looking forward to some good racing around the streets of Trento.

The relay will start at 5:30pm here is Italy, so that would be 1:30am on Tuesday morning for all you back home on the east coast of Australia. If you’re keen for a late night I’m sure it will be worth every ounce of tiredness later that day! You can follow all the action on the WOC website. There will be live results for free, if you want more than that you will need to pay for access for the IOF’s new live center, which will give you access to gps tracking and the live TV stream.

We will be also posting news and photo updates to the Orienteering Australia Facebook page about the progress of the race as things happen so check that out as well. That should about be enough to look at but if you so desire more then you can always check out World of O or Attackpoint for many discussions and updates about the races.

Hanny and Elin after a morning run!

Toph

World Orienteering Championships 2014 Prelude

4 July 2014

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Categories: 2014 Archive, High Performance News

The World Orienteering Championships for 2014 start tomorrow (Sat 5th July) in Venice with the Sprint Qualifications at 9:00am local time (17:00 EST). The women’s first start is at 9:00am and the men’s at 10:00. Today the Australian team is travelling from their pre camp base at Luserna the 2.5 hour drive down to Venice to participate in the model event and to stay at accommodation at Jesolo Event Centre north east from Venice. The team, apart from doing some last minute preparation- technically and mentally for the races coming up have been relaxing and enjoying the mountain environment.

2014 Australian WOC Team

Wendy Read, Jasmine Neve, Julian Dent, Vanessa Round, Simon Uppill, Rachel Effeney, Chris Naunton, Hanny Allston, Lachlan Dow, Felicity Brown, Tom Quayle.

The sprint qualification will be held in Burano and Mazzorbo islands. This area is partly urban with very narrow streets and a canal with bridges. The rest of the area is less built and more green with some farmland. The area is closed off for traffic.

Burano is an island in the northern Venetian Lagoon and is 11km from Venice.

Ever seen those photos of Venice that show brightly-painted buildings and flowerpots. Those aren’t from the main island of Venice, but Burano. Families used to paint their homes in bright colors to designate where their family’s quarters ended and a neighbor’s began, as well as to make their homes more visible from the sea. The tradition has stuck. Burano has a problem in winter when it suffers from severe acqua alta, or flooding. Not sure what the tides are like today but I am sure the athletes won’t be running in water at WOC.

The sprint qualification and final day is quite a logistical challenge for the organisers who will be providing private boats to transport the athletes to the quarantine area at Burano for the qualification. Those athletes who qualify for the final will have to stay at Burano until 12:30 and then take a private boat on a one hour trip to the quarantine at Venice in preparation for the final. The final’s first start for women (4km) is at 15:20 local time (23:20EST) and for men (4.4km) first start is at 16:25 local time (00:25EST). The top 15 runners from each qualification start in the final. The winning times for both women and men is expected to be 15 minutes.

The final will be held on the eastern section of Venice Island. Some of the Australian team have been training in Venice recently and Graham Hammond has made a great video of their training.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7eUftWQ85U

Australia will be represented in the women’s qualification heats by: Hanny Allston, Felicity Brown and Rachel Effeney, and in the men’s qualification heats by Lachlan Dow, Julian Dent and Simon Uppill.

Good luck.

WOC 2014 Italy 5th July-12th July

1 July 2014

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Categories: 2014 Archive, High Performance News

The Australian team to compete in the World Orienteering Championships which begin this Saturday 5th July in Italy have all been getting some quality training and also some good competition experience in the Italian terrain in the past week.

All team members competed in the three day Alpe Adria event which was held in the very physical and also technical terrain of the Cansiglio forest in the foothills of the Dolomites north of Venice. The sprint event was held in the town of Conegliano on Saturday evening and the local authorities closed the roads in the centre of the town for the event.

The Alpe Adria event included a long distance race, terrain relay, sprint distance event and a middle distance event. The Australian terrain relay teams both Women and Men had wins in the relay- a morale boosting performance leading to the WOC relays on Saturday 12th July. The women’s team of Jasmine Neve, Hanny Allston and Vanessa Round had a comfortable 8 minute win after a very fast second leg from Hanny. The men’s team (Simon Uppill, Lachlan Dow and Julian Dent) was always in the lead after Simon running the first leg came back in first place.

Hanny (5th) and Simon (7th) had good results in the long distance event and Hanny followed this with an even better performance in the Sprint winning this event by 9 seconds with Lizzie Ingham in second place. Rachel Effeney had a 5th place, Felicity Brown 9th and Jasmine Neve 12th in this event. In the mens event Julian Dent was 5th, Lachlan Dow 13th, Simon Uppill 14th and Chris Naunton 29th. In the middle event Simon Uppill demonstrated very good form in this difficult terrain with a second place, Julian finishing in 8th place. In the womens event Jasmine Neve showed good form with a 4th place behind the winner Lizzie Ingham and Vanessa Round was 12th.

More details about these events and other team info can be found on the WOC blog

http://australianorienteeringteam.blogspot.it

The team has now all moved to Luserna for the pre WOC camp. The two WOC coaches,Tom Quayle and Wendy Read have arrived in Italy and along with the team will spend the next four days preparing for the competitions which begin on Saturday 5th July.

The WOC program is

Sat 5th July Sprint Qualification– Burano 9:00-11:00, Sprint Final Venice 15:30-17:25 (Women-Hanny Allston, Rachel Effeney, Felicity Brown. Men Julian Dent, Simon Uppill, Lachlan Dow)

Mon 7th July Mixed Sprint Relay– Trento 17:25-18:40 (Rachel Effeney, Hanny Allston, Julian Dent, Simon Uppill).

Wed 9th July Long Distance– Lavarone 12:00-16:55 (Women-Hanny Allston, Vanessa Round. Men-Simon Uppill)

Fri 11th July Middle Distance– Campomulo 12:00-16:55 (Women-Jasmine Neve, Vanessa Round. Men- Julian Dent).

Sat 12th July Relay –Campomulo 13:00-16:45 (Women-Hanny Allston, Jasmine Neve, Vanessa Round. Men-Julian Dent, Lachlan Dow, Simon Uppill).

Reminder that live WOC will be available including GPS at

http://www.woc2014.info/woc.php

The new structure of WOC in 2014 with no qualification races for the middle and the long distance events means that we are only allowed one runner in the mens long and middle distance and two women in the long and middle distance. This has been determined by our performances at the two previous WOC in 2012 and 2013. As the number of runners we will have next year is partially influenced by how our runners perform this year as well as the performances we achieved in 2013, the outcomes from WOC have both an individual significance for each of the team members but also a team significance for the future. This team significance relates to our performances in the middle, long and relay only.

On behalf of all Australian orienteers we wish all the team the best for WOC this year.

2015 National Orienteering League program announced

30 June 2014

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Categories: 2014 Archive

The 2015 National Orienteering League program has been finalised as follows.

Round	Date	Event	Location/Map
1	Sat 7th March	Mixed Sprint Relay	Sydney – map TBC
2	Sat 7th March	Sprint Qualification	Sydney – map TBC
3	Sun 8th March	Sprint Final	Sydney – map TBC
4	Fri 3rd April	Elite Prologue	Jamestown SA
5	Sat 4th April	Easter Day 1 Middle distance	Southern Bri Glen Jamestown SA
6	Sun 5th April	Easter Day 2 Long distance	Bri Glen-Tunderri Jamestown SA
7	Mon 6th April	Easter Day 3 Relay distance	Mulga Valley Jamestown SA
8	Sat 23rd May	Middle distance AUS v NZ	Canberra (OA organized)
9	Sun 24th May	Long distance AUS v NZ	Canberra (OA organized)
10	Sun 28th Aug	Ultra Long	Ballarat
11	Sat 26th Sept	Aus Champs- Sprint	Victoria
12	Sun 27th Sept	Aus Champs- Middle	Victoria
13	Sat 3rd Oct	Aus Champs- Long	Victoria
14	Sun 4th Oct	Aus Champs- Relay	Victoria

OA High Performance Elite News

22 June 2014

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The international orienteering seasons is coming to the climax with the World Orienteering Championships starting on 5th July in Italy, to be followed by Junior World Orienteering Championships in Bulgaria starting on 21st July.

The Australian teams for both these competitions are starting to assemble in Europe to train and also participate in some warm up orienteering events.

Next weekend in Italy all the WOC team members will be participating in the three day Alpe Adria event in the foothills of the Dolomites just north of Venice. This event comprises a long distance race, a terrain relay for teams of three, a sprint distance race and a middle distance race. These events will give the Australian WOC team the opportunity for some race experience in Italian terrain and also a chance for the terrain relay teams (male and female) to compete before the all important relays in the WOC program. The sprint distance event will see the final trialing of the remote SI timing system to be used for the mixed sprint relay at WOC.

http://www.ortarzo.it/aaoc2014/en/
The WOC team will enter into their pre-WOC training camp on the Monday 30th June leading up to the WOC sprint distance qualification and final to be held in Venice on Saturday 5th July.

There will be LIVE results and GPS tracking of all the finals – see the link

http://www.woc2014.info/woc.php

During the WOC week of events there will also be a public series of events “Five Days of Italy”. Australia has a large group of orienteers competing in these events (48) and they will also provide a large support base for our WOC team during the week. Some of the JWOC team (Matt Doyle, Brodie Nankervis, Ashley Nankervis, Michele Dawson, Anna Dowling, Nicola Blatchford and Manager Karen Blatchford) are using these events to acclimatise to competing in Europe and to also experience the atmosphere of the World Championships- well known Swedish commentator Per Forsberg will be providing the commentary in the arena. They will be there to support the JWOC Coach Hanny Allston who is in the WOC team and all the other team members.

The WOC and JWOC blogs have been updated and will be used to provide more information in the coming weeks of the team’s preparations and performances. The JWOC blog contains some good updates on some of the team’s preparations leading up to their departure for Europe. The WOC blog has a report from Lachie Dow on his training and competitions in Italy recently.

JWOC Blog

http://ausjuniororienteering.blogspot.se/

WOC Blog

http://australianorienteeringteam.blogspot.se/

WILDFIRE SPORTS AUSTRALIAN ULTRA LONG

Bulletin 1 has been released for the Wildfire Sports Ultra Long Distance Championships (NOL Round 5) to take place on Sunday 31st August. This event will be held on the Mt Kooyoora map which was first used for the WOC in 1985.

The elites will be competing to win a prize of a return flight to Europe and also other prizes donated by both Wildfire Sports and Dirty D. This event will also be the Victorian Long Distance Championships for all other ages. For these events there will be up to $700 worth of prizes available.

Wildfire Sports Australian Ultra Long Program.pdf

On Saturday 29th August there will be the Victorian Middle Distance Championships using the same map as the Ultra Long.

Victorian middle distance info.pdf

Entries are available on Eventor.

Consider a tax-deductible donation to the Australian Sports Foundation (ASF) to support orienteering projects

21 June 2014

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With the end of the financial year approaching at the end of this month, please consider a tax-deductible donation to the Australian Sports Foundation (ASF) to support orienteering projects ranging from the JWOC team to club equipment. To donate, go to donations for further information and a downloadable ASF donations form.

Australian MTBO Championships a success in Alice Springs

15 June 2014

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Rhiannon Prentice 2nd W14

The Australian MTBO Championship Carnival has had a very successful weekend in Alice Springs.

Over 120 competitors from all Australian states and New Zealand have navigated their way around the many kilometres of single track trails surrounding Alice Springs.

Saturday’s middle championship was held on the west side of town and finished at the Albrecht oval, Larapinta. The terrain was extremely rocky and rugged in sections and the elites had quite a bit of sand to contend with too. Courses were well set by Steve Sullivan, requiring some intricate map reading but also crucial route choices.

The long title was on an even larger and more complex area of tracks on the east side of Alice, starting and finishing adjacent to the Todd River at the Telegraph Station complex.

Most courses had some massive route choice legs but also included a lot of single track riding. Many riders found themselves in a maze of tracks vehemently hoping they had selected the correct one leading to their control. Lee Merchant was the course setter and was warmly thanked for the challenges he presented.

The final event, the sprint, will be held on Monday, again on the west side, with courses set by former WOC representative, Paul Darvodelsky.

The women’s elite had a large field, including three former WOC representatives. ACT’s Julie Quinn has made a successful return by winning both titles with Carolyn Jackson the runner up for both. Marina Iskhakova took third in the middle, with Norwegian based Melanie Simpson third in the long.

In the men’s elite Paul Darvodelsky had the fastest time in both events but was riding unofficially given that he lives in Alice and knows the tracks well. Alex Randall (VIC) won the middle from Steve Todkill (NSW) while Chris Firman (QLD) took the gold in the long, with Alex Randall second.

A surprisingly number of riders have managed to win both titles although there has been close competition in all age classes.

Three Alice Springs residents have been successful in gaining the podium so far in the competition. St Philips student Jordyn Kindness has won both events in the W14 class. Georgina Landy rode strongly against very experienced orienteers to place a close 3rd in the long championship in W40. Cecily Sutton did brilliantly for second place in W60 in the long also.

In the Australia v New Zealand Challenge the Aussies lead 10 classes to 6 after two days. The small contingent of Kiwis did extremely well to be 4 all after day 1 but the Aussies won 6-2 on day 2.

Day 1 – NZ won W50, M50, M60, M70.

Australia won M21, W21, M40 & W70.

Day 2 – Nz won W50 and W70.

Australia won W21, M21, M40, M50, M60, M70.

Sunday evening saw 120 people attend a buffet dinner and presentation night at The Chifley Resort – Alice Springs. Leigh Privett (Albury Wodonga) was the extremely pleased winner of the 29 inch carbon Norco bike donated by the sponsoring bike shop, Ultimate Ride.

Class winners Australian MTB Orienteering Championships

Middle	Long
W14 Jordyn Kindness (NT)	Jordyn Kindness (NT)
W21 Julie Quinn (ACT)	Julie Quinn (ACT)
W40 Nicole Haigh (NSW)	Nicole Haigh (NSW)
W50 Deb Bain (NZ)	Deb Bain (NZ)
W60 Kathy Liley (VIC)	Kathy Liley (VIC)
W70 Dale Ann Gordon (VIC)	Yett Gelderman (NZ)
M14 Harrison Keeble (VIC)	Hamish Keeble (VIC)
M20 Tim Jackson (VIC)	Angus Robinson (VIC)
M21 Alex Randall (VIC)	Chris Firman (QLD)
M40 Neil Ker (QLD)	Craig Steffen (QLD)
M50 David King (NZ)	Duncan Sullivan (WA)
M60 Michael Wood (NZ)	Peter Cusworth (VIC)
M70 Chris Gelderman (NZ)	Tim Hackney (NSW)

OA High Performance Squads June 2014

13 June 2014

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OA has updated the list of athletes in the High Performance Squads. Membership of the squads is dependent on the athlete making an application and then their recent performances, participation and committment are used to determine which squad if any they are assigned to. The initial lists of squad members was published in December 2013 and these lists will be updated every six months.

Additions to

High Performance Squad: Jo Allison, Shannon Jones and David Shepherd.

National Development Squad: Todd Neve, Max Neve and Zoe Radford.

Australian Junior Development Squad: Bec Butler, Asha Steer, Oisin Stronach and David Tay.

Full list of each squad