Queensland Cyclones win their first senior National League title
The Queensland Cyclones won their first senior team title in the Icebug National Orienteering League when they took out the senior women’s competition in 2015. After a number of near-misses in recent years – notably in 2012, when they lost by a single point after the lead changed hands in the last few controls of the Australian Relays – it once again came down to a winner-take-all fight with the Victorian Nuggets in the last race of the season. Nothing separated Krystal Neumann and Natasha Key on the first leg, but Rachel Effeney set up what turned out to be a winning five-minute lead on the second leg, and they never looked like losing from there.
The Canberra Cockatoos won their fifth successive men’s title. The Victorian Nuggets got within striking distance at times during the final week, but could not quite get close enough and went into the relays needing to beat the Cockatoos by at least three places. That was never likely to happen, and as it happened the Cockatoos came through the field on the second leg of the relays to assure themselves of being the leading state team on the day, giving them a 14-point win.
Both junior titles also came down to the final day; in both cases whoever won on the day out of the Nuggets and the Tassie Foresters would prevail. They were split one apiece, with the Nuggets taking the junior men’s by a large margin and the Foresters equally dominant in the junior women’s.
Final scores from the senior and junior divisions are available.