Local orienteer Ryan Smyth put in a dominating performance in today’s 2^nd race of the June long weekend series of events at Pittwater Dunes. In the 9 Km course of the 6^th round of the Tasmanian Orienteering Series Ryan completed the technically demanding course set by John Whittington in an impressive 63:50 to be almost 6 minutes ahead of 2004 JWOC representative Louis Elson. Grace Elson rounded out the top three a further 8 minutes behind. Interstate visitors Evan Barr (VIC), Murray Scown (ACT) and Chris Naunton (VIC) found the extensive use of the low-visibility areas on the top half of the map to be very challenging, but also a great learning experience in terrain foreign to most Australian orienteering experience.

Course 1 results:
1 Ryan Smyth (WRT) 63:50
2 Louis Elson (ALT) 69:37
3 Grace Elson (ALT) 77:03
4 Evan Barr (VIC) 79:14
5 Paul Pacqué (EVT) 79:40
6 Murray Scown (ACT) 91:01
7 Bernard Walker (WRT) 92:40
8 Nick Andrewartha (ALT) 93:03
9 Chris Naunton (VIC) 96:45

On the 7 Km course 2, ACT’s JWOC representative Sophie Barker ran 72:24 to record third fastest time behind recent Tasmanian arrival Jon McComb. An interesting side note was that Sophie was 6 minutes ahead of Australian adventure racing legend and Team AROC member Matt Dalziel.

Tomorrow’s competition will be the Tasmanian Middle Distance Championships to round off the long-weekend of orienteering heaven.