At the Australian Schools Championships presentation dinner last night at the Tidal Waters Resort in St Helens the Australian Schools Honour team was announced. It is:

Junior Girls
Hannah Goddard TAS
Georgia Jones NSW
Asha Steer VIC
Heather Burridge QLD

Junior Boys
Jarrah Day TAS
Patrick Jaffe VIC
Stephen Melhuish ACT
Daniel Hill NSW

Senior Girls
Michele Dawson NSW
Anna Dowling TAS
Nicola Blatchford NSW
Rebecca Butler TAS

Senior Boys
Brodie Nankervis TAS
Shaun McDonough TAS
Oliver Poland ACT
Matt Doyle VIC

Congratulations to all our junior orienteers that were selected in the Honour Team. They will be in with a strong chance of selection in the Australian Schools team to take on New Zealand next January during the Oceania 2013 Carnival. Selection races for the Australian Schools team will also include results from the Australian Long Distance Championships on Saturday.

The Examiner newspaper has published a story online about Tasmania’s victory in the Australian Schools Championships.

The final pointscores for the Australian Schools Championships are:

The final pointscores for the Southern Cross Junior Challenge are:

Matt and Grace Crane both did the double on the first weekend of the Australian Championships carnival in Tasmania, following up wins in the Australian Middle Distance Championships on Saturday with second victories in the Tasmanian Long Distance Championships on Sunday..

Grace was especially dominant in the women’s competition. She celebrated her return to home ground with a massive six-minute margin in the Middle Distance Championships, getting through a technical course without major mistakes on a day when almost everyone else was making plenty, and turning the margin from large to overwhelming on a long leg late in the course. Anna Sheldon had her best result for the year with second, with Tracy Marsh in third. Grace then had an even bigger win the next day, with a 10-minute margin. This time Jasmine Neve was the closest challenger, while Marsh completed a pair of third places.

Matt did not have as much to spare in M21E but still completed a pair of wins. In the Middle Distance he recovered from early time losses, but it took until the long leg late in the course for him to take a decisive advantage over Max Neve. Neve, a first-year senior previously little-sighted this year, had his best result at senior level, and was joined in the places by another first-year senior, Lachlan Dow. On Sunday, Matt opened up a lead early on and held it all the way, although Rob Walter was always in touch and added another good long distance result to his Victorian Championships win the previous weekend. Another experienced long distance specialist, Rob Preston, was third.

Heather Muir and Todd Neve took out the junior titles at the Middle Distance Championships. Oliver Poland, who had been running seniors the previous day, returned to the junior ranks to win on Sunday, whilst Lilian Burrill had a solid win over the longer distance.

The major developments in the Silva National Orienteering League were in the women’s competition. The Victorian Nuggets cut the lead of the Queensland Cyclones from nine points to three, while Grace Crane kept her chances of overhauling Rachel Effeney alive, although she will still need at least a win and a second from the remaining two races.

Competition continues with the Australian Schools Championships tomorrow.

Direct links to results for the Carnival to date are:
Aust Middle Distance Champs results: http://www.obasen.nu/winsplits/online/en/default.asp?page=classes&databaseId=23000&ct=true

Orienteering Australia will be convening an open meeting on high performance pathways in Australian orienteering this Saturday evening in St. Helens. This meeting is open to anyone – particularly coaches and athletes – interested in the development of high performance orienteering in Australia, from the state junior squad level up to the WOC team. We are interested in ideas for improving high performance pathways in the future, and in information exchange from experience of successful programs which already exist, in Australia and overseas.

Areas we are particularly interested in include:

– strengthening the weaker links in our pathways – improving the transition from domestic to international competition, and from junior to senior elite competition

– building a stronger coaching structure and culture in Australian orienteering

– what can we learn from successful programs at the state level?

– learning from successful HP programs internationally (We’re particularly interested in learning more about what the NZ juniors do, and would like to get someone from NZ to the meeting if we can)

Ideas coming out of this meeting will form part of the input to planning our high performance program into the future (starting with a meeting/hookup of the HP Management Group which I’m hoping to convene either late in the carnival or shortly thereafter).

The meeting is scheduled for 8pm on Saturday 22 September, at the Portland Memorial Hall in St. Helens.

Anyone unable to attend is welcome to submit ideas by e-mail to oa_president@netspeed.com.au.

The Bushrangers’ team for the Australian Bushrangersvs NZ Pinestars Elite Test Matches (Aust Sprint Champs Sept 28th, Aust Long Champs Sept 29th) is as follows:

Men

Josh Blatchford

Bryan Keely

Rob Preston

Reserve: Brodie Nankervis

Women

Grace Crane

Rachel Effeney

Aislinn Prendergast

Reserve: Susanne Casanova

SCHOOL SPORT TEST MATCH TEAM

A School Sport Australia team of  16 athletes, comprised of 4 Junior boys, 4 Junior girls, 4 Senior boys and 4 Senior girls.will be selected to contest a “Test Match” against New Zealand .  This will be held in NZ in January 2013.  2 non traveling reserves will be named for each category.

Selection criteria are as follows:

2012 Australian Schools Championships Results and the 2012 Australian Orienteering Long Distance Championships.

Students must compete in both championship events to be considered for selection.    The selectors may make use of different formulae for analysing the results (eg placings, kilometer rates and total elapsed times.)    Greater emphasis should be given to the Schools Champs ahead of the Australian Long Distance Champs.

Note:

Any competitor who has been found to have breached the code of behaviour set down by School Sport Australia shall not be eligible for selection.

Any competitor who has been disqualified (DNF,DSQ) from either event shall not be eligible for selection.

A selection panel of 3 will be appointed at the management meeting before the commencement of competition.    A fourth panel member will be appointed by Orienteering Australia.

BUSHRANGER TEAM will be announced shortly.

A MTBO TRAINING CAMP will be held in conjunction with the Christmas 5 Days in Victoria.  It will go from Dec 27^th – January 2^nd.  More details available in October.

The Nordic Orienteering Tour began last weekend in Oslo, Norway.  This involves 5 stages –  9 races over 8 days in 3 different countries.  It also includes the last events of the 2012 World Cup.   The tour moves onto Sweden on Tuesday and finishes with two days of racing next weekend in Vuokatti, Finland.

The first stage involved a sprint qualification and then the top 30 went through to the final later in the afternoon at the Holmenkollen Ski Centre in Oslo.   Australia had Julian Dent (43^rd), Evan Barr (54^th)and Vanessa Round (42^nd) competing but none were happy with their runs and didn’t progress to the finals, which were won by Simone Niggli, (Switzerland) and Olav Lundanes, (Norway).  This was Simone’s eighth World Cup win this season from the nine races held so far!!      Olav Lundanes was fastest in the men’s qualification and  urged on in the final by the home crowd, he managed to win by the narrowest possible margin, one second!

 Sprint final,Oslo

 Women

 1.Simone Niggli SUI 16:22

 2.Emma Klingenberg DEN 16:42

Men

 1.Olav Lundanes NOR 15:14

 2.Matthias Kyburz SUI 15:15

 3.William Lind SWE 15:51

The  second race last weekend  was a shortened Middle Distance race with a winning time of 30 minutes and a 90-second start interval. The start lists were the sprint results in reverse order.

The Middle distance king Thierry Gueorgiou (France,) showed that he is back on his best form after injury, winning the 4.9 km course (with 290 m climb) by 42 seconds.   Julian Dent had an impressive run finishing 26^th, just 3.28 mins in arrears.

Simone Niggli, (Switzerland) won yet again – this time  by 1.19 over Swiss team mate Judith Wyder.   Vanessa Round had both injury and navigation concerns to finish in 46^thplace, over 8 minutes down on the winner.

  Middle Distance

 Women

 1.Simone Niggli SUI 29:09

 2.Judith Wyder SUI 30:28

 3.Tatyana Ryabkina RUS 31:00

  Men

 1.Thierry Gueorgiou FRA 29:00

 2.Peter Öberg SWE 29:42

 3.Matthias Kyburz SUI 30:06

The next race of the Nordic Tour is on Tuesday, when the Gothenburg northern waterfront will be the venue for an urban Sprint, knock-out style. The finals for the best eight runners start at 17.55 (women) and 18.10 (men), Swedish time.

The final races next weekend are in Finland and these will give both organisers and competitors some insights into what awaits next year at WOC, also in Finland.     There is great coverage on the Nordic Tour website, including maps with route gadget and live TV which is being seen in Sweden, Norway and Finland!    The “World of O” also has good summaries and map discussions.  

Kiwi star and present Canberra Cockatoo, Lizzie Ingham is this month’s athlete interview subject on the IOF website.  “My goal is to be the first Kiwi on the podium at WOC.”   An excellent read.

Congratulations to the many Aussies who competed in the World Rogaining Championships in the Czech Republic last weekend.  ACT stalwarts Julie Quinn and David Baldwin won the veteran mixed category and reportedly covered 135 kilometres in the heavily tracked terrain.  Supervets Geoff Lawford (ACT/Vic) and Rod Gray (Qld) were victorious in their category also.