The 2005 South Australian Middle Distance Championships was held in the Burra region, approximately two hours north of Adelaide. It was the second of two events held in the area over the Adelaide Cup long weekend. The Sunday event was a Badge event run by Yalanga Orienteers on the Merridee map. The next day was the SA Middle Distance Championships, held on Bri Glen, a map directly adjoining Merridee to the north.

The top three places in the open class (M21-39A) were hotly contested with less than 4 minutes separating them. Lachlan Hallett managed to catch Simon Uppill and Miguel Clark to take out the 6.4km course in 36:38, two minutes clear of Uppill and 4 minutes ahead of Clark. Hallett started well and stayed ahead for the entire race, finishing strongly with the fastest last 5 legs, catching both Uppill and Clark at the last control. Clark started well, only 11 seconds behind Lachlan at the third control, but then his lack of stamina showed as he dropped off the pace losing two minutes over the following two legs to let Uppill into second place. Greg Morcom also started strongly, ahead of Uppill in the early stages of the course but dropped in the second half to finish in 4th place. Tyson Hillyard,Warwick Dougherty, and John Nieuwenhoven rounded out the field. Sadly, another hot contender for a fast time, Conrad Elson (from Tasmania, living in South Australia for the year), was unable to finish due to an injury, sensibly preferring to preserve himself for the junior world orienteering championships later in the year.

The womens open class (W21-39A) was a two woman race at the top, with Susanne Casanova taking the 4.6 Km event ahead of Zebedy Hallett by three minutes in a time of 31:21. The two matched each other early with Hallett leading at the third control, but the experience and endurance of Casanova prevailed and she took control from then on, staying in the lead for the rest of the race. It was a great run by Susanne who had run second in the M21 event the day before only 5 minutes behind Lachlan Hallett. Third place was a closer affair between Miriam Whittington, Jenny Casanova, Katherine Radford, and Lexie Ashforth. Whittington finished in 44:11, with Jenny Casanova 20 seconds behind, Radford two minutes back and then Ashforth only a further 20 seconds. Michelle Soar and Edda Keskula finished out the field.

In the junior classes, M/W17-20A, Jason Nicolson and Vanessa Round won the men’s and women’s events respectively. The men’s race (4.6km, the same course as the open women’s event) was quite close with only 4 minutes separating the top 5. Tristan Lee started strongest leading Nicolson at the 4th control. A two minute mistake then lost him the lead that he was unable to regain, finishing second, one minute behind Nicolson. The rest of the field were all on a similar time until the 4th control and only 2-3 minutes behind the leaders. Andrew Slattery then had a great second half to move into second place briefly at the 7th before finishing third, less than a minute behind Lee. Michael Roberts and Max Sankauskas finished off the top five with times of 41:05 and 41:39 respectively. Vanessa Round comfortably outran the rest of the junior women, finishing in 27:32, over 10 minutes clear of Mallory Hughes and Rebecca Hembrow. Both Hughes and Round lost a significant amount of time on the second leg which left them to play catch up for the rest of the race, leaving little chance of pulling Round in. Shannon Nicholson, Nicole Such and Peta Johannsen finished out the field.