2010 Archive

Australian orienteers have continued to perform well in the hilly terrain of Portugal.  Today saw the Middle Distance events – keenly watched online by a contingent of Aussies.

Most suspense was around the mens’ race with all four Australian riders having early start times (our last starter Adrian Jackson was finished not long after the last start of the day).  All men had great rides with Adrian once again leading the charge.  His time of 67:14 had him sitting in the leading position for over an hour before Samuli Saarela of Finland came through to take Gold with a 40 second lead.  The bronze medal was won by Luca Dallavalle of Italy in 70:02.  Next best Australian was Alex Randall in 21st place with 75:07, Steven Cusworth 25th in 76:44 and Grant Lebbink 48th in 83:57.

The womens’ event was won by multi World Champion Michaela Gigon of Austria in a time of 60:32.  She was followed by Rikke Kornvig of Denmark and last years’ gold medallist Marika Hara of Finland took bronze this time around.  Mel Simpson was the best placed Australian in 25th place (69:32) with Mary Fien close behind in 27th (70:13).  So both girls were close to the leaderboard.

Unfortunately it appears that a control misplacement resulted in the cancellation of the Junior Mens and Junior Womens courses.  The unofficial results had the best placed Australian was Chris Firman with a time of 71:03 fininshing in 22nd place.  Luke Poland was 30th in a time of 76:22 and Marc Gluskie 36th in 81:57.

Adrian Jackson has managed to be the first man to successfully defend his sprint world champion title, winning the day over Estonia’s Tonis Erm by 18 second (Adrian’s Race Report).  Steven Cusworth also had an impressive ride in is first international sprint race, he was disappointed to lose about a minute towards the end of the race but still finished in 22^nd place in amongst some very experienced riders. Steve’s speed was on track for a top 10 finish!  Alex Randall and Grant Lebbink were also happy with their rides, although Grant also had difficulty towards the end around the ruined castle.

In the women’s race, Mel Simpson and Mary Fien rode steadily and after Mary’s first control both girls had clean rides with hesitations to check the map.

The junior men, all of whom were competing in their first international event, performed well.  Chris Firman was the first of the juniors in 28^thplace in a time of 21:50, he also had difficulty towards the end of the course.  Marc Gluskie was only one place behind in a time of 22:02 and felt that he’d managed to maintain a speed that he could still navigate well.  Luke Poland made a mistake on the way to the first control and was caught by the prepubescent Italian junior boy and kept seeing him through out the race.  Ultimately he finished in 39^th position in 23:54.

RESULTS:

Women
1. Anna Kaminska (POL) 21:25
2. Christina Schaffner (SUI) 21:27
3. Martina Tichovska (CZE) 22:04
28. Melanie Simpson (AUS) 25:47
40. Mary Fien (AUS) 28:32

Men
1. Adrian Jackson (AUS) 22:08
2. Tonis Erm (EST) 22:26
3. Anton Foliforov (RUS) 22:30
22. Steven Cusworth (AUS) 24:45
32. Alex Randall (AUS) 25:30
63. Grant Lebbink (AUS) 30:01

Junior Men
1. Grigory Medvedev (RUS) 17:58
2. Andreas Konrig (DEN) 18:10
3. Krystof Bogar (CZE) 18:32
28. Chris Firman (AUS) 21:50
29. Marc Gluskie (AUS) 22:02
39. Luke Poland (AUS) 23:54

For more details follow these links.

World Championship Sprint event (Maps, Videos)

Sprint results

Sprint splits

Australian team blog

The Championships continue with the Middle Distance event tomorrow.  You can follow each event live on the web – go to the 2010 World MTBO Championships website.

Details of the schedule for the next week – remember that Portugal is 9 hours behind the East Coast of Australia.

Mel Simpson

The Australian JWOC team have finished a tough week of competition in the sand dunes of Northern Denmark. No doubt there are plenty of preparations for tonights banquet, the traditional finish to championships.

The relay terrain is very hilly and different to the technical sand dune challenges of the Middle and Long Distance races. The legs of the relay were 7.4-7.7km for the first two legs in the men, with a shorter 5.4-5.6km final leg. For the women the first two legs were 5.4-5.6km and the final lege 3.1-3.2km. These variances add a little more complexity to the decisions coaches have to make when selecting teams.

In the women’s race Belinda Lawford (AUS1) and Claire Butler (AUS2) finished just 2 secs apart in 29th and 30th, 13mins behind Denmark’s Emma Klingenberg. On the 2nd leg Sarah Buckerfield produced her best run of the week to post 13th fastest time and pulled AUS1 team up to 16th place. Georgia Parsons (AUS2) in her first JWOC jumped 3 spots to 27th. On the 3rd leg Lillian Burrill was unable to maintain the high position and AUS1 finished in 23rd place and Brea Pearce brought AUS2 across the line in 28th.

In the men’s race, Lachlan Dow (AUS1) handed over in 23rd with Josh Blachford not far behind in 28th. Oscar Phillips moved through the field to pull AUS2 up into 25th, with Ian Lawford falling a little to 27th. On the final leg, Kurt Neumann AUS1 leapfrogged Oliver Poland AUS2 with the teams finishing 27th and 31st respectively.

The Scandinavian nations continued their dominance of the championships with the Denmark winning the women’s and Norway winning the men’s class.

Keep an eye out for the final installments of the JWOC team blog.

JWOC Middle Final 9/7 2010
Full Results

After the intense urban challenge of Aalborg University in yesterdays Sprint race, today the Long Distance race was held in the challenging sand dunes of Svinklov. Belinda Lawford 59th and Lachlan Dow 71st were again the best performing Aussies.

Denmark’s Ida Bobach continues to dominate the women’s competition, winning her second gold medal in two days. In a good day for the Scandinavians, Sweden’s Therese Klintberg was 2nd by 1min51secs and Finland’s Sari Anttonen was 3rd.

Pavel Kubat from Czech Republic won the men’s class by 44secs over Sweden’s Johan Runesson and Switzerland’s Mattias Kyburz.

The competition takes a break tomorrow while the athletes prepare for the Middle Distance Qualifications on Thursday.

Remember to checkout the team blog for the inside scoop.

JWOC Long Distance 6 July 2010- Results Summary

The Australian MTBO team is now settled in the town of Chaves and have competed in some local races over the weekend.  Many of the European teams have already raced and trained in Portugal, so there was only a small collection of international riders who were racing.  Both races started and finished in the small village of Tinhela.

The middle distance race on Saturday was physically demanding because of the steep hills and rocky tracks (as an idea, in the womens course we had 17,6km and 500m of climb).  The route choices in Sunday’s long distance race involved a lot more sealed road sections, which meant that the courses did not feel so much more physically demanding as we were anticipating.  Adrian was even expecting a second map at the end of the long!  Both days were hot, dusty and rocky.

Junior Boys
  All of the junior boys are competing internationally for the first time so these events were a good warm-up.  Marc Gluskie was the only one of the Aussie junior boys to complete two full races and finished in a very commendable 6th overall.  Luke Poland didn’t arrive in time for the event on Saturday having ended up stuck in Barcelona when he couldn’t take his bike on the train. He organised himself some alternative transport and rode on Sunday, finishing in 123mins in 16th place. He tells me it took him a while to get into the map and get use to the animals (dogs, cows, goats, donkey) and local farmers who were out and about on the map.  Chris mispunched at a control that was on a similar feature and was a sequential number.  He otherwise had a good ride and would have been in about 6th place.  On Sunday, Chris was suffering from the effects of the start of a cold, he drank his way through 2 bottles of water and found the second half of the course very draining.  He finished in 130mins and came straight back to the car for more water. 

Senior Men  Adrian Jackson finished 2nd overall behind Denmark’s Erik Skovgaard Knudsen.   His time on Saturday was a mere 2 seconds behind Erik in about 65mins and he then relaxed the pace a bit for Sunday’s ride.   Alex Randall finished 5th overall having riden solidly both days.  Grant Lebbink ended up in 13th place overall.  Steve Cusworth rode solidly on the first day, but had some trouble with one of the controls and finished in 89mins.  Unfortunately, Steve had a flat and then a crash in the long distance and didn’t end up finishing the course. 

Senior Women　Mel Simpson had reasonable rides coming 9th and 3rd in the individual races and 4th overall. There were several route choices on both days and it was interesting to compare with the other girls afterwards, taking particular note of when it was advantageous or not to avoid the hills. Mary Fien, whose bike did not arrive at the aiport as expected, borrowed Mel`s bike on Saturday and did the course a minute quicker in 66mins.  By Sunday she had aquired the hire bike which was not the most highly spec’ed of bikes. Even before reaching the start line she’d resigned herself to the fact that it would be an entertaining experience. Despite the bike`s best efforts she finished the race in 104mins in 9th position!! 

Training  The last couple of days have involved training on the local maps and looking through the old part of town in Chaves where the sprint will be held on Sunday.  That and trying to keep cool.  You can read more about the teams adventures at their blog: http://ozmtboteam.socialfx.net

Australian team brochure Profiles of members of the Australian team can be found in the 2010 Aust MTBO team brochure.pdf.

MEL SIMPSON

The 2010 Junior World Orienteering Championships commenced today with the Sprint Distance Race at Aalborg University, Denmark. The home team live up to the hype and won both Men’s and Women’s classes, a fantastic effort. Rasmus Thrane Hansen won the Men’s class by 19 secs from Great Britain’s Kristian Jones and Norwegian Vegard Danielsen and Swede Jonas Leanderson shared 3rd place. Ida Bobach’s winning margin in the women’s class was 24 secs, and impressive margin over the 2.3km course. Poland had a fantastic day with Hanna Wisniewska 2nd, and Monika Gajda 3rd place.

ACT’s Belinda Lawford, in her 4th JWOC was the best performing Aussie, finishing 37th, 2mins26secs behind the winner.

ACT’s Lachlan Dow was the best of the men finishing 43rd, only 1min36secs behind the winner. Oliver Poland 57th and Ian Lawford 67th both had great runs in their first JWOC races which is sure to give them plenty of confidence for the rest of the championships. NSW’s Josh Blatchford was equal with Ian in 67th.

Keep an eye on the team blog for more news and pictures (when the team has finished cooling down).

Results:

2010 Junior World orienteering Championships, Aalborg, Denmark.

Men 2.7km

Women 2.3km

The Australian Junior team is starting the long trip to Denmark for the 2010 Junior World Orienteering Championships. The team of 12 athletes are meeting in Arlborg to start the training camp this weekend in eager anticipation for the champs starting on 5^th July. The Aussies will race against 301 competitors from 36 countries.

JWOC Program

Monday 5 July- Sprint Distance
Tuesday 6 July- Long Distance
Wednesday 7 July- Rest
Thursday 8 July- Middle Distance Qualification
Friday 9 July- Middle Distance Final
Saturday 10 July- Relay

You will be able to follow the teams progress on the Orienteering Australia website and for more details and entertainment checkout the new team blog-http://ausjuniororienteering.blogspot.com/.

And remember to join the Australian Orienteering Facebook page, or OrienteeringAUS Twitter account for the easiest ways to keep in touch with Orienteering news in Australia.

Most of the MTBO team has headed to Europe to meet up on July 2nd in Lisbon.
Melanie Simpson has been busy doing mtbo races in Denmark and Poland; Mary Fien has been warming up tackling Mont Ventoux and other Tour de France climbs and Luke Poland is busy cycling through Spain to meet the team in Portugal!
The team goes straight into some lead-up events on july 3-4 and then does some training near Chaves before the first event (the sprint) on July 11.

Look up our blog site for updates –http://ozmtboteam.socialfx.net.
There are already some interesting world cup maps and reports there from Melanie.

The Portuguese website has some interesting facts and history on all riders.
http://www.mtbwoc2010.fpo.pt

Leading medal winners are:
Ruslan Gritsan (RUS) = 11 – 5G  4S  2B
Mika Tervala (FIN)    = 10 – 6G  2S  2B
Adrian Jackson (AUS)=  7 – 4G   –    3B

Michi Gigon (Austria)= 13  – 5G  5S   3B
Ksenia Chernykh (RUS) 9     4G   4S  1B
Paivi Tommola (FIN)     8     5G  2S   1B

This year the elite championships and the third ever MTB JWOC are again at the one location.  However, Australia is making its debut at JWOC, with young guns Marc Gluskie (Tas), Luke Poland (ACT) and Chris Firman (QLD) eager to mix it with the Europeans.

Support your sport – tax-deductible donations sought through Australian Sports Foundation

With 30 June fast approaching, you have the opportunity to make a tax-deductible donation to support orienteering in Australia through the Australian Sports Foundation.

This can be directed at any of the following projects:

– WOC Teams

– JWOC Teams

– MTBO WOC Teams

– National Development Programs

– Hosting International Events

– Hosting National Schools Championships

– State Association Equipment

Donations must be made on the official form. For donations to be tax-deductible this financial year they will need to have been processed by 30 June, which means they will need to be sent soon (credit card payments can be processed more quickly than cheques).

Any questions can be directed to the OA Director (Finance), Blair Trewin, at oa_finance@netspeed.com.au.