2010 Archive

The 2010 Australian MTBO Championships were held this weekend near Daylesford, Victoria. Bayside Kangaroos,

The middle and sprint distance events were held on Saturday in the Castlemaine area. Marquita Gelderman, from New Zealand, was a convincing winner of both events in the open women’s division, with resident champion honours going to Thorlene Egerton (middle) and Mary Fien (sprint and long).

There was a major upset in the men’s sprint, in which Steven Cusworth finished just over a minute ahead of multiple world champion Adrian Jackson, with Alex Randall in third place. The middle distance was more predictable with Jackson winning by two minutes over Randall, and Jackson returned to his accustomed position in the long-distance, ahead of Randall and Cusworth.

Oscar Phillips, better known as a foot JWOC team member, had narrow wins in the first two men’s junior races before a more convincing victory on Sunday, while Jasmine Sunley took out all junior women’s distances.

Middle distance results and splits.

Sprint distance results and splits.

Long distance results and splits.

More information can be found at http://www.vicorienteering.asn.au/mtbo/auschamps/

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has released the World Anti-Doping Code 2011 Prohibited List which will come into effect on 1 January 2011.

 There are some very important changes that athletes and support personnel need to be aware of including:

•  the addition of a new section on “non-approved substances”
•  the removal of platelet-derived preparations (commonly referred to as PRP)
•  removal of the obligation for athletes to file a Declaration of Use for specific substances that are not prohibited
•  a modification to the classification of methylhexanamine.

 Further information about the new Prohibited List can be found on the ASADA (www.asada.gov.au) and WADA (www.wada-ama.org/en) websites.

 Athletes can re-check the status of their medications at any time by referring to the Check Your Substances tool on the ASADA website. The Check Your Substances tool will be updated to reflect the 2011 changes on 23 December 2010.

With the MTBO Australian Championships to be held in just over 2 weeks, the current National League standings for 2010 have been updated.

The MTBO National League has individual and state team competitions and applies across all age classes.

There are some new names leading the Elite competitions this year with Mary Fien of NSW ahead in the women and Jamie Dougall of Queensland leading the men.  Will they hold their lead at the Australian Championships?

In the teams competition, Victoria leads the way for the elite field and will most likely retain that position with many strong competitors and the National Championships located there.  However, in the Masters competition, Queensland is currently leading the way, followed by NSW with Victoria in an unfamiliar 3rd place.  Competition will be tight in this category!

The Jan Kjellstrom International Orienteering Festival, the UK’s premier orienteering carnival, is being held over Easter 2011 (22 – 25 April). It will include 2 World Ranking Events and is being conducted in Ireland in Belfast.  The Irish Orienteering Championships (IOC) will be held on the following weekend 30 Apr – 2 May south of Dublin in the Wicklow Mountains.

This provides competitors with an opportunity for 7 days of orienteering (at least), including 2 x WREs, combined with a visit to Ireland.  The events are easily accessible with Belfast and Dublin less than 2 hours apart.  There will also be training activities for the days before the JK and in the days between the JK and IOC.

Contact Murray Cowan at murraycowan@gmail.com for further information.

The “Rock Oyster” map northwest of Mannum was the setting for the Australian Relay Championships.  The relay courses offered route choice across the spur-gully mallee covered terrain with deeply incised creeks and gullies.  Most courses offered competitors the choice of straighter routes across the gullies vs. longer routes along the ridge tops or around the lower slopes.

Consistent runs by all three members of the ACT M21E team of Grant Bluett, Dave Shepherd and Rob Walter, enabled them to hold off the NSW despite the fastest split of the day by Julian Dent on the last leg.Victoria was 3^rd and SA 4^th..  ACT completed the 3 man course in 133:23, and NSW 134:26, with each leg about 7.8 km in length.

In W21E, the Victorian women’s trailed the ACT after the first leg. Jasmine Neve was the lead out for Victoria and Jo Allison for the ACT. However Natasha Key overtook Mace Neve on the second leg, handing over to Kathryn Ewels with a 23 second lead.  Kathryn extended the lead slightly over the final leg against ACT runner Shannon Jones.  The Victorians’ time was 124:54 and ACT 125:42.  Qld was 3^rd and SA again 4^th.

SA teams to do well were the M45A team of Phil Hazell, Steve Cooper and Dave Nicolson who were 3^rd, the W21AS team of Lexie Ashforth, Rebecca Davill and Helen Mason-Fyfe who were first, Zara Soden, Robin Uppill and Anne Cooling 2^nd in W35A and Frank Tomas, Jim Rathjen and John Williams third in M65A.

Links to all carnival results – Results 

View a leg in the M21E course

The Australian Sprint, Long Distance and Relay Championships, the 3 concluding rounds of the Australian National League, were held near Adelaide this weekend.

For more details about each event see the SA Web site.  Links to all results can be found here.

The individual SILVA National league results were
Senior Men – Julian Dent (303 pts), Simon Uppill (267 pts) Dave Shepherd (255 pts).
Senior Women – Shannon Jones (282 pts), Vanessa Round (258 pts), Anna Sheldon (249 pts)
Junior Men – Ian Lawford (250 pts), Lachlan Dow (231 pts), Kurt Neumann (228 pts)
Junior Women – Belinda Lawford (249 pts), Lilian Burrill (240 pts), Sarah Buckerfield (229 pts)

Julian Dent was the standout performer winning all but one of the individual races for the series.

In the teams competition, NSW Stingers won the Senior Mens, the Victorian Nuggets the Senior Womens, the Qld Cyclones the Junior Women and the ACT Cockatoos the Junior Mens.

Queensland are the champion state in the Australian Schools Championships for the third year in a row, after two days of competition in the Mount Crawford area. They were level with Tasmania after the individual day, but pulled clear with maximum points in three of the four relays, winning the two junior classes outright and coming second to New Zealand in the senior girls.

New Zealand dominated the individual competitions on their way to taking the Southern Cross Junior Challenge (again). They won three of the four classes, through Laura and Tim Robertson (senior girls and junior boys), along with Lauren Truner (junior girls). The senior girls and junior boys were virtually NZ-Queensland head-to-head competitions, especially the senior girls where between them they filled the first seven places. Max Neumann and Jack Oakhill filled the placings in the junior boys, whilst Turner’s closest opposition came from Anna Dowling (Tasmania) and Shea-Cara Hammond (ACT). Emily Cantwell (Queensland) separated Robertson and Selena Metherell in the senior girls.

The one class where New Zealand did not have things all their own way was the senior boys. Whilst their four runners all made the top seven, at the front end it was an ACT quinella through Ian Lawford and Oliver Poland. Their JWOC teammate, Kurt Neumann, was in third place.

In the relays, Queensland dominated the junior boys from start to finish. The junior girls did not have things quite as easy, but still had things well under control by the final leg. That was enough to place them in a very strong position, despite a mispunch in the senior boys. To match them Tasmania needed to put together four good results as they had the previous day, but a spirited second (holding New Zealand off in the day’s best finish) in the senior boys was the best they could manage. The ACT won that race thanks to excellent runs on the last two legs from Oliver Poland and Ian Lawford, which gave them just enough points to overhaul NSW for third place overall.

Official points: Qld 45, Tas 42, ACT 34, NSW 33, Vic 22, SA 20, WA 14.

2010 Australian Schools Honour Team Announced

Junior Girls

Kate Bowen                   ACT

Heather Burridge           QLD

Anna Dowling               TAS

Shea- Cara Hammond   ACT

Junior Boys

Joe Dowson                  WA

Matt Doyle                    QLD

Max Neumann               QLD

Jack Oakhill                   QLD

Senior Girls

Emily Cantwell              QLD

Jacqui Doyle                 QLD

Heather Muir                 QLD

Rebekah Sunley             VIC

Senior Boys

Riordan Dose                 SA

Ian Lawford                   ACT

Kurt Neumann               QLD

Oliver Poland                 ACT

Full results for both days available here.

OA Mapping Committee chairman Adrian Uppill organised a highly successful mapping workshop in Adelaide today. It was attended by almost 30 mappers from all states and territories, ranging from current elites Rob Preston, Murray Scown and Lachlan Hallett to mapping maestros Alex Tarr and Jonathon Sutcliffe.

The workshop began with an enthralling presentation by Robert Rusk from Aerometrex on the history of aerial photography and photogrammetry in Australia, showing the large advances in technology and quality of imagery in the last 30 years and how that has flowed through to production of high resolution georeferenced aerial photographs, digital contour maps and 3D images. He also showed how laser beams bounced off the ground from planes can now create amazingly precise contour maps using LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) technology.

Adrian Uppill reported on the advances in use of LIDAR by European mappers from the recent international mapping workshop in Norway, and warned of the dangers of over-mapping which have been experienced in some countries already. Neil Simson reported on practical uses of LIDAR by town planners across Australia and the availability and potential uses of LIDAR by orienteering mappers in Australia. GPS units are now being extensively in Australia for mapping and a number of practical examples were presented by Lachlan Hallett, Rob Simson and Adrian Uppill.

A wealth of information is found in the OA mapping pages at the mapping pages

The first event of the Australian Championships carnival was held this afternoon at the Lady Alice Goldfield, near Para Wirra National Park about 50 km north of Adelaide.

The event attracted 571 competitors from all Australian states as well as New Zealand and Hong Kong.

 The event area covered an area of gold mining in the late 19^th century, with old diggings and many small ruins.  Open eucalypt forest on the spur gully terrain meant for fast running.  The area was largely a new map area not previously used for orienteering, and Orienteering SA is grateful for the support of the Department and Environment and Heritage and the Humbug Scrub Wildlife Sanctuary for access to the area.

 The event is the Round 14^th of the SILVA National Orienteering League.  The women’s senior elite course of 4.9 km saw Anna Sheldon (Qld Cyclones) victorious in 35:09 min ahead of Natasha Key and Shannon Jones.  Tracey Marsh led early but faded being overtaken by several runners to finish 6^th.  Best South Australian was Susanne Casanova 9 seconds behind Shannon.   Julian Dent (NSW Stingers) continued in his winning way (31:14 for 6 km)   in M21E ahead of Grant Bluett and Simon Uppill.  Julian briefly surrendered the lead by a few seconds in the early part of the course, before pulling away over the faster latter part of the course.

 The junior elite men’s course was won by Oliver Poland (ACT Cockatoos) and the women’s by Lillian Burrill (Qld Cyclones).

 Local SA runners successful were Andrew McComb in M50A, Paul Hoopman in M60A. For full results click this link

South Australian spur gully terrain, with mostly fast running areas, a broad track network, and minor rock detail challenged orienteers at today’s SA Long Distance Championships and SILVA National Orienteering Round 15.  Many route choice options were offered with more direct choices or longer track options.  Slower run areas of yacka (a tough spikey plant) added to the options.

Yesterday’s winner of the W21E Middle Distance event, Anna Sheldon, again saw off all challengers, with Vanessa Round (SA) second and Tracy Marsh 3rd.  The 9 km course was won by Anna in 70:12min.

In M21E, Julian Dent had a very convincing win, covering the 14.2 km in 82:47 min, over 10 minutes clear of Grant Bluett (2nd) and Simon Uppill (SA, 3rd), the same trio took the placings in yesterday’s Middle Distance event.

The boy’s junior elite was a close tussle between Karl Bicevskis of Tasmania (74:20), 18 secs ahead of Oliver Poland in 2nd, and then a further 24 secs tp Oscar Phillips in 3rd place. The junior girls elite was also relatively close with Heather Muir of Qld first ahead of two New Zealanders, Jaime Goodwin and Laura Roberston.

Other impressive winners were Matt Doyle (Qld) in M14A, Warren Key (Vic) in M50A, 7 minutes ahead of the 2nd place getter Tim Hatley (Vic); Geoff Lawford )ACT)  in M55A, Wayne Aspin (NZ) in M65A, Clive Pope in M70A, Holly Edmonds (NZ) in W16A, Jenny Bourne (ACT) in W50A, Valerie Robinson (NZ) in W70A.

Full results here

Both the NSW Stingers (men) and Victorian Nuggets (women) went into the weekend’s National League rounds with weakened teams and lost some of their lead as a result. The Stingers still lead by 27 points and are virtually certain to win, but the Southern Arrows’ women have closed to within striking distance with the gap down to 12 points.

The Australian Championships Carnival continues on Tuesday with the Australian Schools Individual Championships.