Author: craigf

The Australian elite Orienteering season commenced on the weekend with the Stromlo Running Festival race in Canberra. A small, but quality field contested the massed start, multi looped race set by Grant McDonald, the Manager for Canberra Cockatoos. Kathryn Ewels (VIC) has carried her great form from 2009 into the new year with a convincing win 4mins5secs in front of ACT’s Mace Neve over the 5.5km course. First year senior Aislinn Prendergast (VIC) followed closely behind Neve and just in front of Jo Allison (ACT).

In the men’s race, current #1 ranked Julian Dent has returned to the top after missing the 2009 AUS champs carnival through injury. Dent has shown good summer form in athletics races and overcame a small mistake on the first control to win in 29mins27secs. A great battle between experienced local athletes Dave Shepherd and Rob Walter resulted in a sprint finish with Walter 2nd in 30mins32secs, 4secs in front of Shepherd. A close pack fought it out for 4th-7th, with Victorian Bryan Keely just outsprinting Ben Rattray (SA) for 4th.

The novice race had 30 participants keen to try orienteering and seeing if they could emulate the form shown by Ewels and Dent. Before attempting the 2.2km course they received great coaching tips from Rob Walter and Jenny Bourne.

Full Results  Splits

The race was part of a training camp for the National Senior Squad. Training sessions included a night orienteering exercise on Bruce Ridge, Sprint orienteering at University of Canberra, and relay training on Sparrow Hill. The final session on Sandhills sent the elites home tired, but certainly more prepared for Easter Twenty10 to be held in Canberra in April.

Eureka Challenge 2010 – 6 & 7 March (Labour Day Long Weekend)

Be sure not to miss one of the highlights on the SILVA National Orienteering League calendar! The Eureka Challenge weekend, in less than three weeks time, will provide some of the closest and toughest racing we have seen for many years.

While competing in arguably some of the most technical gold mining terrain in Australia, Round 1 of the 2010 season will provide competitors and spectators alike with a unique and exciting experience. With what promises to be two of the best event arenas seen in Australia, spectators can thrill in watching our best elite competitors racing head-to-head as they traverse through the arenas and at multiple spectator controls. It promises to be an unforgettable event where spectators can also experience the challenge of close racing and technical orienteering.

SILVA National Orienteering League

Race 1 – Long Distance (Mass Start Hagaby)
Date – Saturday 6 March
Map – “Chewton Diggings” (Chewton / Castlemaine), complex gold mining last used for the 2009 Australian Middle Distance Championships

Start times – Mass starts from 10:00 am

Race 2 & 3 – Sprint Distance and Mixed Relay
Date – Sunday 7 March
Map – “Bryce’s Flat” (Daylesford), complex gold mining. Detailed section of the 2006 World Orienteering Championship trial map.

Start times – Race 2 at 8:00 am, Race 3 at 11:00 am

Public Race & State Series

Supporter Public Race
Date – Saturday 6 March
Start times – 11:00 am to 12:30 pm
After watching the National Orienteering League event, participate over some of the same challenging legs to test yourself against the clock.

State Series 1 – Sprint Distance
Date – Sunday 7 March
Start times – 10:00 am to 1:00 pm
You have seen the elites, now take on the challenge of sprint distance orienteering in intricate gold mining terrain.

Entries closing soon!  Online entries close this Friday 19 February for SILVA National Orienteering League competitors and next Friday 26 February for the Saturday Public Race and Sunday State Series competitors.

Victoria Country have dominated rounds 1 and 2 of the 2010 Southern Cross Series with wins at Diamond Hill, Bendigo over the weekend.

The competition kicked off on Saturday evening with a 3.5Km forest sprint course in technical mining terrain.  The Interstate Raiders provided good competition, with many South Australians making the trip to Bendigo for the weekend.

Simon Uppill (Interstate Raiders), Bryan Keely (Country) and Bruce Arthur (Metro) produced the 3 fastest times, but it was the Country team who won the team competition on the day with 14 points, from Vic Metro (11) and Interstate Raiders (9).

The Run of the Round prize was voted on by team captains for the best performance of the day.  South Australia’s Lauren Gillis was the first recipient of the award (8 votes) after running the second fastest women’s time of the day.

Day 2 of the returned to the same map used for the event two years ago, Diamond Hill, for a 10Km two loop Hagaby. The mass start saw a large lead pack quickly form, but large splitting on the first loop meant it splintered and didn’t really form a solid group until the second loop. At the map change the lead pack consisted of Simon Upphill, Bryan Keely, Leon Keely, Chris Naunton and Evan Barr. The pace was high and there was no room for error. The leading five men remained within about 50 metres for the first half of the 7.5km second loop. The first casualty was was Chris Naunton who was dropped by the group on the long climb up to 7, at the post race press conference Naunton lamented that although he had had a good summer of training in New Zealand he simply hadn’t done enough steep stuff and today it showed. The rest of the pack was glad to see Naunton fade, but with knowledge of Naunton’s technical prowess in the local goldmining they knew that they knew couldn’t afford to become complacent.

For the next few controls the pack of four remained within a whisker of each other, but the runners knew this could only last so long. On the long leg the current leader of the pack Simon Uppill decided to sort the boys from the men. He led out of number 10 and delibrately took the steepest route he could see hoping to use his strength on the hills to drop any pretenders. The strategy worked and the youngest member of the pack Leon Keely began to fade on the approach to 11. However, this would not be the last of Leon, a small error on 15 made by the pack allowed Leon to gain back ground. However, Leon fell back over the next couple of legs and the pack was down to 3. During the latter stages of the race the leading 3 runners Uppill, Barr and Bryan Keely were all within 5 or 10 seconds of each other. A classic three man sprint finish was on the cards. However, for one of the runners an administrative error earlier in the day would turn the possible sprint finish into anticlimactic fade. Earlier in the day Barr was running late for the start and missed the briefing to do a late warm up instead. Due to this he was under the mistaken belief that there would be a second map change and hence a third loop. At the post race press conference Barr recounted being baffled by seeing Uppill and Keely surge over the last two controls believeing at the time that they had another loop to race. Saving himself for a third loop that didn’t exist Barr was dropped by the the others over the last 500m. But at the front of the pack the race went on. The titanic cat and mouse struggle between Keely and Uppill saw the lead change several times over the closing stages of the race but Uppill just pipped Keely by one second in a sprint finish for first. Barr trundled over the line 25 seconds down and junior boys’ winner Leon Keely came in a minute and a half down in fourth.

Once again, Victoria Country won the round (20 points), this time by an even greater margin.  Interstate Raiders (11) were second from Vic Metro (7).

Bryan Keely and Laurina Neumann shared the Run of the Round prize after tying on 4 votes each.

Results

Results are now up on the Bendigo Website, Day 1 & Day 2

Overall Southern Cross Points

Round 1 Points

Round 2 Points

Route Gadget

Win Splits

Thanks to Jim Russell and Bendigo Orienteers for organising the BendiGo ToDay event.

Round 3 of the Southern Cross Sereis continues on March 27 at the Bendigo Orientshow.

Evan Barr & Bruce Arthur
Southern Cross Series Directors

The 2010 Australian MTBO squads were named recently :

High Performance
Adrian Jackson          VIC

MENS A SQUAD
Alex Randall              VIC
David Simpfendorfer    ACT
Paul Darvodelsky       NSW

WOMENS A SQUAD
Carolyn Jackson        VIC
Melanie Simpson       NSW
Mary Fein                  NSW
Cath Chalmers           WA
Thorlene Egerton        VIC
Jen Graham-Taylor     WA

JUNIOR BOYS A SQUAD
Chris Firman              QLD
Heath Jamieson         VIC
Kurt Neumann           QLD
Luke Poland              ACT
Alex Massey             NSW

MENS B SQUAD
Stephen Cusworth      VIC
Anthony Darr             NSW
Aaron Dodd               VIC
Jamie Dougall            QLD
Grant Lebbink            VIC
Ricky Thackray          WA
Damian Welbourne     NSW

WOMENS B SQUAD
Caitlin Wade              VIC

JUNIOR BOYS B SQUAD
Jack Allison               SA
Marc Gluskie             TAS
Michael Poland          TAS
Josh Neumann           QLD

2009 World Orienteering Championships representative Shannon Jones has emulated the recent feats of Hanny Allston and Kathryn Ewels with outstanding track and mountain running performances.

On Thursday 11 February Jones took out the ACT 10,000m track championship in 36.50 and on Sunday 14 February ran a two-minute personal best in rain on slushy fire trails to win the 10.4 km Stromlo Stomp mountain run in 46.19, finishing 4th outright.

See also the two news articles (in News) posted 14-2-2010, on MTBO.

Hi all

The WOC Bulletin 2 for Portugal is now on the Portugal website with lots of good information.

Note that the rules only allow you to go off track if you carry your bike off the ground.

Items I would like replies to:
1) Everyone.  (This will be a check that all are receiving these emails.)
Would you be interested in a 3 day tr camp in Canberra immediately after Easter??
This wouldnt just be open for team members but would be an opportunity for juniors and others to get together and do some intense mtbo over the time.  ie Tues, Wed and Thurs.
Please reply Yes, No, Maybe

2) Everyone.  Team riding uniform.  Stay with the Cycling Australia design or do another?

3) Everyone   If you record your training electronically on ‘attack point” or similiar, please forward me your user name so I can follow your training.

Those that have been to WOC before please give me your opinion on:
3) Should we book Hotel (E40pp); Pension (E30) or Private House (E25) accommodation.  If we are looking at the Hotel we would need to get in early.

4) Re WOC – car hire.  Any suggestions on the type?

Well the trials are only about 7 weeks away, so I hope everyone is making transport arrangements etc.
See mountain devil website for info, photos and old maps =http://mountaindevils.nsw.orienteering.socialfx.net/

More importantly you should be doing some map reading training at this time, as that is the crucial ingredient for MTBO.  Most states have few or no races before the trials so some improvisation is needed to get you race ready.
You MUST train with your mapboard and mapreading at least once a week.
– Preferably get to a mtbo area, and get someone to give you a course to do.  Even better get someone to shadow you also at this time, as this adds a little pressure.
– Next best use a street directory of your city and again get someone to set you courses around it.  Obviously you cant go flatout in this situation, but you will get good practice in having quick looks at your map and developing good map memory.
– At worst just use mtbo maps from anywhere and find a quiet road, outdoors velodrome, or quiet suburban road circuit and practice doing route choices while riding hard.   Incorporate this into an interval session.  Maybe 1km hard and 20-30 secs recovery whilst looking at one or two legs.  Repeat 10 times then while cooling down have a 2nd look at each leg and see if you made the correct choice and look at what other options there were.
You could print off o/s maps to use or ask your local mtbo club or association for maps or ask to lend mtbo maps of nearby riders.

Physical training wise:
1) do some hill intervals as the trials will be undulating to hilly.
2) practice racing or riding hard for the 2 race lengths  ie
M/W20 = 40-50 for middle, 70-90 for long
M/W21 = 50-60        ”       90-110 for long

See attachments for:
Final 2009 National Rankings list 2009NatRankOAOld.xls
2010 planning calendar 2010 Event Calendar Blankish.doc
National series dates, places and scoring system. 2010 New National MTBO Series (EM) .doc

After WOC event – foot O I think,
Dear O-friends,
we’d like to inform you that in 2010 Slovenian 5 day event OO.cup will
be organized in attractive alpine region of Velika planina and Zgornja
Savinjska valley from July 24 to July 28. Like always you can expect
quality orienteering in magnificent natural surroundings. For
invitation, pictures and map samples please check www.oocup.com

Please note that only one week before, that is from July 17 to July
19, we will organize a 3 day event called Xtremor in vicinity of
Adriatic sea. This is an event with slightly different concept, meant
strictly for orienteering gourmets. All about it you can read at:
www.xtremor.com.

Between Xtremor and OO.cup feel free to enjoy the sea, the Alps or
even more technical orienteering provided on our trainings (more info
to follow at: www.orienteering.si)

Updates will be forwarded regularly now I finally have the squad list

The Ballarat Silva Duo on Australia Day was judged an outstanding success by competitors and officials alike, with close to 80 entering the event. Mark Valentine and Blake Gordon along with a great team of Eureka Orienteers did an excellent job in running the event. For a full race report click here: Race report

Results and a link to the photoworx website for excellent photos of the event are on theSilva DuO website. 

The next race in the 2010 SILVA DuO Adventure Race series will be at Gembrook on the 28th February and then at the You Yangs on the 28th March. Enter online now!

Get off road this summer, challenge yourself and have some fun at a SILVA DuO Adventure race! Whether you want to try a new challenge this year or you’re a hard-core adventure racer the SILVA DuO is for you: fabulous courses set on detailed maps, spectacular scenery, awesome trails and a friendly atmosphere. Each Race will involve trail running and mountain biking in bush terrain with a bit of easy navigation to get you thinking. The mountain biking legs are on dirt tracks, fire trails and single-track and the run legs take you off the tarmac and into some of Australia’s most beautiful natural bushland. Each race will have a long and a short course. Enter as an individual or do it together with a mate in a team. There are great winner’s and spot prizes up for grabs.

More details at: www.silvaduo.com

In 2009 Australia staged twelve ranking events (8 Long Distance and 4 Middle Distance) over the states.

See the attached file for rankings: 2009NatRankOAOld.xls

The decision of the OA MTBO Committee confirmed at the Australian Championships was to base the rankings on the best two races for each rider who rode in more than one state or rode the two ranking races at the national championships. No short distance race results were used to rank riders as small differences in time distort the time-behind-the-winner calculations. This resulted in far fewer riders being ranked nationally in 2009, but the committee agreed this reflects the new status of National Ranking. Participation at three rounds of the National MTBO Series, selection trials for MTB WOC and JWOC, and increased interstate travel should see the number ranked increase in 2010. Some interesting notes from the 2009 rankings

• The number of riders ranked in the top three:VIC (17), SA (9), NSW (3), ACT (3), TAS (2), QLD (1) with the nationals staged on the SA/Vic border.
• Winners to repeat their top 2008 ranking were Adrian Jackson (M21-E), Robert Prentice (M50-A), Rick Armstrong (M60-A), John Sheahan (M70+A), Kathy Liley (W60-A) and Joyce Rowlands (W70+A). With the 2010 National MTBO Series including the Masters Series, as well as the Elite Series, the already keen Masters competition should be enhanced.
• The margins between first and second place was 0 to 5 points in 9 out of the 13 classes – showing the level of interstate competition is ramping up in many classes.
• No junior women are ranked in 2009 as they have not participated in sufficient events.

2009 Ranking Criteria

1. A rider must complete 2 championship races in 2009 – the finalranking calculated by averaging the best two results – that come from either the two national championship (Al, Am) races or two state championships (one counted race must come from an interstate race outside one’s home state).
2. The winner of a race earns 100 points with all other riders ranked higher (above 100) in comparison with the winner.
3. No sprint race results to be used in the calculation of national mtbo rankings in 2009.
4. Though international riders (NZL) participated in several championship races and raised the competitive standard of the events, they were not included in the National Ranking lists.

Blake Gordon, OA  MTBO Statistician

Former Orienteering Australia President Bob Mouatt (pictured) of Red Roos in the ACT has been honoured with an OAM in the Australia Day honours list for services to orienteering.

Bob’s contributions to orienteering over many years in administration, event management, media, technical development and Controller training are numerous and substantial. In recent years was President of Orienteering Australia before standing down to continue a national media role in publicising Australian national team performances and the National Orienteering League, and a strong event management role in the ACT.

Australian Tax Commissioner Michael D’Ascenzo of Bush Flyers in the ACT was also honoured, receiving an AO for service to public administration.

Orienteering Tasmania is hosting the orienteering competition for the Australian Police and Emergency Services Games (AP&ES Games) on Sunday 21 February.  The event will be held on arguably Australia’s most challenging map, Pittwater.  The technical sand dune terrain has bamboozled many a fine orienteer over the years.

The event will be held in conjunction with a local event, so open to all to take up the challenge.  You can test your navigation skills against police and emergency service workers. Pittwater is just a few kilometres from the airport and the centre of Hobart.  For interstate entrants, an easy place to travel for the weekend.

Enter is on the day for unofficial AP&ES Games competitors (ie most of us who will be treating the event as a local but challenging event).  BUT AP&ES Games competitors MUST enter through their on-line entry form found at http://www.apandesgames.com.au/  by 1 February. To find out more visit the OT website www.tasorienteering.asn.au or email Miriam atdevelopment@tasorienteering.net.au