Author: craigf

The National Training Centre program for Orienteering Australia is delivered through a partnership with the ACT Academy of Sport. The ACTAS / NTC Orienteering program will be offering a number of scholarships for the 2008 year. In 2008 a total of up to 6 scholarships will be offered. The goal of the ACTAS/NTC orienteering program is to support Australia’s best high performance orienteers achieve their full potential as world class orienteers and to provide support to emerging junior orienteers who demonstrate the potential to be future world class orienteers in international elite competition. The squad is not limited to residents of the ACT, however it is noted that athletes based in ACT are likely to receive the most benefit from the squad. ACTAS/NTC squad athletes who reside outside of the ACT are still eligible to receive support through national camps to be held in Canberra and/or other locations.

The High Performance Management Group (HPMG) is currently in the process of selecting the 2008 ACTAS Squad. In consultation with ACTAS the attached selection criteria have been developed with a notable change being that squad selection is to be by invitation. The selection criteria can be found here ACTASSquadSelectionCriteria2008.pdf.

The 2008 National Senior Squad will also be announced soon.

Any enquiries regarding the squads can be directed to OA Manager, High Performance, Rob Preston at oa_headcoach@netspeed.com.au.

The AROCSport Adventure Racing season starts next week with a race in Canberra on Friday night (a good lead-in to the Annual Conference).

AROC is a good friend of Orienteering Australia’s encouraging its competitors to attend orienteering events to hone their skills. A large reason for the swelling numbers in orienteering street events is the growing popularity of adventure racing, and adventure based sports.

AROCSport are well known to many orienteers who compete in their events regularly. The most successful has been various members of the NSW Stingers elite orienteering team who have dominated many of the short AROC races in recent years. AROCSport are known for their attention to detail, good course-setting and maps, and having their controls in the right spot!

Entries for next weeks race are still open, and further details about all their events can be found on their website
www.arocsport.com.au

Photo: Ex-JWOC team member Andy Hill (NSW) in an AROC race.

Orienteering Australia has appointed Nick Dent as Coach, and Hilary Wood as Manager of the National Junior Program, including JWOC 2008 and 2009.

Nick and Hilary bring with them a great deal of experience with junior orienteering. They have joint managed JWOC teams in 2005 and 2006, and Hilary was 2007 manager. In the five years of  managing the NSW Schools Team, they successfully won the Australian Schools Championships four times.

Orienteering Australia looks forward to the positive impact that Nick and Hilary will have on the development of our junior orienteers.

Note for juniors- a revised National Junior Squad will be announced in about 2 weeks.

The new National Junior Squad and Junior Development Squad have been announced. The National Junior Squad is open to all those eligible for JWOC in 2008, whilst the Junior Development Squad is open to those eligible for M/W16 in 2007.

The National Junior Squad is:

Morten Neve
Nick Andrewartha
Bryan Keely
Leon Keely
Lachlan Dow
Joshua Blatchford
Tristan Lee
Simon Mee
Oliver Mitchell

Heather Harding
Ineka Booth
Bridget Anderson
Belinda Lawford
Jess Davis
Rachel Effeney
Laurina Neumann
Krystal Neumann
Aislinn Prendergast
Brea Pearce

The Junior Development Squad is:

Oscar Phillips
Kurt Neumann
Max Neve
Rory McComb
Sam Webb
Luke Poland
Oliver Crosato

Claire Butler
Emily Prudhoe
Lilian Burrill
Tamara Orr
Nadia Velaitis
Melanie Neumann
Glennie Nottle

Subject to members accepting a place in the squad, those selected now will remain in the squad until next October, but the squads may be added to during the course of the year.

Adrian Jackson is the 2007 Victorian Men’s Sprint Orienteering Champion after winning comprehensively today at Monash University in Melbourne’s east. Jackson’s time of 15.01 was almost a minute ahead of an ill Bruce Arthur, effectively ending his hopes of winning the Victorian championship trifecta.

The quirks of the 1960s campus architecture made for excellent sprint orienteering with a maze of buildings, alleys and passages… automatic doors were even part of many route choices.

Tash Key won the women’s open race ahead of second place Jasmine Neve, making it first and second place in men’s and women’s for the Melbourne Forest Racers club.

Results and splits available.

Dion Keech

The Mark Webber Challenge starts tomorrow with orienteering again being represented within the competitors.

The high profile Challenge is a corporate adventure race style challenge held in Tasmania, now in its 3rd year. The event invites corporate groups to race alongside celebrities from different walks of life including television and sport. In 2007, particpants include Michael Klim and Tatiana Grigorieva. Money raised goes to a number of worthwhile charities including The Leukemia Foundation and The Save the Tasmanian Devil Appeal.

In 2006, World Champion orienteer Hanny Allston was invited to take part and this year, Orienteering Australia High Performance Manager and accomplished adventure racer Rob Preston will compete.

Further information and donations can be made at www.markwebberchallenge.com

Hi Juniors,
We are organising a National Junior Camp for the National Junior Squad and the Junior Development Squad after the Xmas 5 days. It will start on Tuesday1st January and goes until the following Sunday 6th January. There will also be a Park Series (sprint event) organised in Sydney on 7th January.

We are inviting any junior who is interested in developing their orienteering and is committed to competing at the highest level in their class as well as all members of the National Junior Squad and Junior Development Squad.
Please email us at hilary.f.wood@gmail.com to indicate your interest and if you would like to come along.
The camp  will be in the Newcastle area near to where the Xmas 5 days is being held  for 3 days and then finish up down at Belanglo in the OANSW  Hut.
For those who may be flying home the best location is via Sydney Airport to return to your home state.  More details about the camp will be provided soon.

Regards

Nick and Hilary
National Junior Coach and Manager

Australian William Hawkins, who has been living in the United States for several years, won his second national open title last weekend when the U.S. Championships were contested over two days near Washington D.C.

The former Canberran was a minute behind Canadian Mike Smith after the first day, but was the only person in the field who was able to put two days together in the testing, low-visibility gully-spur terrain, coming second on both days to win by five minutes overall. Smith was second and Lachezar Iliev third.

It was a second American title for Hawkins, his first win coming in 2004. He has been largely absent from the Australian scene in recent years, his best local result coming when he won the M20 Australian title in 1997.

Results for the event are available.

New Zealand has retained the Australia New Zealand MTBO Challenge trophy after completion of the Australian MTBO Championships at Cessnock on Sunday.
The Kiwis took a close 11 to 10 victory after the dust had settled in the seven hotly contested age classes over the weekend races that included Middle, Sprint and Long Australian Championships.

The Middle and Long Championships were both World Ranking Events and saw Adrian Jackson take maximum points in the men’s elite class winning all three races with Alex Randall second. New Zealand’s Marquita Gelderman similarly dominated the women’s elite class with three good victories.

Heavy overnight rain on both Friday and Saturday ensured all riders had plenty of cleaning to do between races with mud, puddles and slippery tracks testing their technical skills.

All states scored points in the State Shield trophy based on results from the Long Championship with Victoria taking top place with 30 points from NSW on 24, Qld 18, SA 10, ACT 5, Tas and WA 1 point each.

Big Foot Orienteers took on a big challenge to conduct the three championships in two days and are to be congratulated for their great work in producing excellent courses on three excellent, although muddy, maps.

Full results can be found on the Big Foot site
http://www.bigfootorienteers.com/Results/