The World Cup and Oceania Championships get under way in New Zealand today, with a middle distance World Cup races, and the Oceania Middle Distance Championships. Both races will be contested on an area of complex, largely open sand dunes north of Wellington.

Australia has 9 men and 10 women taking the field today, led by Julian Dent and Grace Crane. The race will be the first World Cup event held in the region since 2000, and while the field is not quite at full strength, it still contains a large proportion of the world’s best orienteers. The first starts are at 9.30am (NZ time) for women, and 10.00 for men. The Oceania Middle Distance Championships for other classes follow from 2.00pm.

Two carnival events have already taken place. The major feature of this was the Australia-New Zealand Schools challenge, with the relay on Friday and the individual on Saturday. While Australia put up a close contest in some classes on both days they were unable to prevent a clean sweep by New Zealand. The best Australian individual results were by Brodie Nankervis (2nd in senior boys) and Nicola Blatchford (3rd in senior girls).

Live video streaming and results should be available through the ‘Results’ section of the Championships website. This also has results from the Friday and Saturday races.