This weekend in NE Victoria Round 2 of the Silva NOL will be held on two very contrasting terrains.
Saturday will be a middle distance event on “Yackandandah” – a very complex gold mining area, small but full of detail and technical and mental challenges. The elite classes will be using a map with scale 1:10,000. Having previously been used for major events strategies will have been developed to deal with these challenges.
Sunday will be a long distance event on “Kangaroo Crossing” a very detailed granite terrain area with plenty of contours and thicker vegetation. The scale for this will be 1:15000 and it is a World Ranking event
As both of these events are relevant for the selection of both the WOC teams and the JWOC team a large field of elites have entered both in the senior and the junior classes.
These events see the return of last years Mens NOL champion Matt Crane to NOL competition. He will be up against the current leader of the NOL Simon Uppill as well as many other athletes who are in contention for WOC selection. The Womens class will see the continuation of the rivalry between Hanny Allston the current NOL leader and last years NOL Champion Lizzie Ingham.
This years NOL teams point score currently has a different look to last year. The NSW Stingers are leading in three divisions- senior men, junior men and junior women. The senior men is very close with Victorian Nuggets one point behind NSW and one point in front of ACT Cockatoos- who have Matt Crane and David Shepherd making a welcome return after his foot injury at the xmas 5 days. The Queensland Cyclones have taken an early lead in the senior womens being four points clear of the ACT Cockatoos.
Mediterranean Orienteering Championships (MOC)
During the past week four of our overseas based elites have been attending a training camp in Venice ( the loction for WOC Sprint in July) and also competing in the MOC events along with some of the best elites from other countries especially Switzerland. The competition comprised a sprint event, a middle distance event on green sand dunes and a sprint chasing start in Florence
Julian Dent- returning to competition after over 9 months out with a foot injury- came 13th overall in a very competitive mens field with Daniel Hubmann being the winner. Vanessa Round, Felicity Brown and Lauren Gillis competed in the womens class. Vanessa came 21st overall, Felicity 24th and Lauren 26th.
Some comments
Julian : “The MOC training camp was a great opportunity to visit the most relevant terrains around Venice for the World Championships sprints. The sprint qual and final in Burano and Venice are going to be excellent but challenging not just technically but logistically so it was good to get a taste of what to expect on the day. The MOC races provided some great competition early in the season against quality runners. The terrains were very fast and not as technical as Venice but the constant blue sky and sunshine made certain that it was a great week in Italy”
Felicity : “The sprint camp in Venice was great! Unfortunately I’ve been injured for two months and have only just started training again so had to take it easy as most training was on concrete but am happy to be pain free. The sessions were really useful focusing on route choices and understanding the different features in Venice such as bridges and difficult to see and count alleyways. The MOC races were good although I am not very happy with mine as running speed was a big factor here and I was slow. I am looking forward to the European championships and many other races over the next few months”.
MOC results, maps and videos.
