The Victorian Nuggets will take a handy lead in all four categories of the National Orienteering League into Easter after a series of good performances on home ground over the Melbourne Sprint Weekend. They swept all four classes in the first three races, with only the Queensland senior women and Tasmanian junior women in race 4 preventing them from achieving a perfect weekend.

Ralph Street finished his Australian sojourn by making a clean sweep of the four senior men’s races, although four different challengers filled the four second places. With Street and his compatriot Peter Bray unlikely to do any more races this season, effective pole position in the National League is closely contested, with only five points separating Henry McNulty, Ian Lawford, Simon Uppill and Brodie Nankervis.

Rachel Effeney and Natasha Key split the honours amongst the senior women with two wins each, although Effeney has a clear lead in the pointscore as Key missed one of the races. The rest were some way further back, although third places for Michele Dawson (twice) and Lanita Steer were both their best results at this level.

In a series of tight junior women’s races – most notably in round 1, when the first three were separated by only three seconds – Steer and Tara Melhuish traded places, with the Canberran having a narrow lead after the first weekend. Patrick Jaffe has a clear lead in the junior men’s with three wins out of four, although Matt Doyle would have been close without a first-race mispunch.

Full senior and junior standings are available through the pointscore page.