Author: craigf

A glorious day welcomed competitors to the NSW Sprint Championships at Lake Alexandra in Mittagong on the Southern Highlands. The terrain was a good mixture of open school buildings, intricate track networks and runnable bush sprinkled with sandstone cliffs. The two start locations thrust the competitors into intricate orienteering immediately, with many inexperienced ‘sprinters’ finding the course a tough technical challenge.

Dave Shepherd, recently returned from the World Orienteering Championships, took the men’s title even though, like many others, he lost some time at the 5^th control, with some fresh unmapped tracks causing trouble. This control was the only time he relinquished the lead, with Steve Todkill (making a return to orienteering after a couple of years in the wilderness) stealing it for a solitary leg.  The podium spots went to Eric Morris and Rob Preston.

The women’s class was close, with three ACT women jostling for the lead. By the 10^th control Anna Quayle had opened a 41 second lead over Jo Allison, with Shannon Jones a further 15 seconds adrift. Unfortunately Quayle lost it all at the 13^th, with Allison coming through to lead them home. Jones and Quayle rounded out the top three.

Veteran Rob Vincent showed he can still cut with the big boys with a winning time in the M40A class that would have been good enough for sixth in M21A.  Daniel Hill, a young Sydney-sider streaked the field in the M10A to win by a huge5:14, maybe the next big thing for JWOC 2016? The veteran classes seemed to be riddled with mistakes and in a few cases it was the cleanest run that took the victory, although Dave Lotty (M60A) was still able to make errors and win. M75A was decided in the finish chute with Brian Johnson turning an eight second deficit into a one second victory.

Recently returned JWOC manager Hilary Wood took her first State title in winning W50A; she was trailing fellow Central Coast runner Robyn Pallas until Robyn lost three minutes in finding the ninth control. Southern Highlands local Val Hodsdon won the W55A class, though she did punch two extra controls along the way.

Full results and splits can be find on the Southern Highlands Orienteers’ website.

After a long campaign in Europe Anna Sheldon has swapped her shoes for the bike type and had a resounding come-back to MTBO by winning the silver medal in the sprint distance at the European MTBO championships.   Anna was 2nd to Switzerland’s world champion (long distance), Christina Schaffner and ahead of Russia’s world champion (relay) Nadia Mikriukova.

The European MTBO championships are being held about 15 Km east of Warsaw in forested sand dune terrain.  It is technically very difficult with many tracks and paths and some difficult riding where the trails are very sandy.

This evening our time will be the ultra-long distance which will be followed over the weekend by the middle distance and then the relay.

Hanny Allston is the highest ranked Australian in the IOF rankings announced this week. Next best-placed is Grace Elson (69th), with Jo Allison, Anna Sheldon, Dave Shepherd, and Rob Walter also in the top 100. Top-ranked orienteers in women’s and men’s foot orienteering are Simone Niggli-Luder and Daniel Hubmann, both from Switzerland.

For the full list, see the world ranking link on the IOF website

In mountain bike orienteering, Adrian Jackson tops the rankings, with Alex Randall 10th. Carolyn Jackson is the highest-ranked Australian in the women’s rankings at 22.

In a twist, the World University Orienteering Championships have ended with an Australian relay team consisting of one man and three women placing well down the field in the men’s final — but still beating several teams, including the USA!

With the competition being run over the last week in Kosice in the Slovak Republic, Australia has had a small representation due to our semesters not coinciding with the northern hemisphere summer break.  This left both men’s and women’s teams without the necessary 4 runners for relay teams.  In true Aussie “give it a go spirit” our three women competitors, Kirsten Fairfax, Anna Sheldon and Grace Elson joined with Simon Goddard to compete officially in the men’s final.  Following solid runs by Goddard, Fairfax and Sheldon, Elson overtook the Japanese fourth leg runner to bring the Australian team into 20th place, ahead of Japan, Serbia and Montenegro and the USA.

Elson was recovering from injury following a fall during the middle distance final on Thursday which saw her withdraw from that event.  She had placed 9th in a field of 73 in the long distance final the previous day, and went on to place 19th in the sprint.  Sheldon obtained Australia’s next best results with a 19th in the long distance, 37th in the middle distance, and 29th in the sprint.

The Canberra Cockatoos have regained the lead in the 2006 National League after the weekend’s events in Queensland. With the NSW Stingers weakened by the absence of several of their key women, the Cockatoos got the maximum 40 points from the weekend and go into the final series of races with a 16-point lead.

There was also a change in third place, with the Tassie Foresters’ lack of depth costing them heavily in the absence of their three WOC representatives, Hanny Allston, Grace Elson and Danielle Winslow. The Victorian Nuggets have overhauled them, and closed to within 10 points of the Stingers for second.

There was also a change in lead in the junior competition. Queensland, with the benefit of home advantage, overtook Victoria and now have a useful 15-point lead.

Dave Shepherd’s win on Sunday takes him to the lead of the individual competition. He will be very difficult to beat from here, especially as he still has a race in hand over Grant Bluett and Eric Morris, in second and third. There were no changes in the top three in the women’s competition, with all being absent. Grace Elson continues to lead by 20 points from Hanny Allston, and may hold that lead with Allston likely to contest the final World Cup rounds instead of the final National League races.

Jo Allison took out the women’s elite event today, with a comfortable four-minute win over New Zealander Rachel Smith. Anna Quayle, the last starter, was locked in a tight struggle with Smith, but fell five seconds short. In the men’s race, Ross Morrison, who was caught by Dave Shepherd early in the race, finished in second two minutes behind, with Eric Morris in third.

Simon Uppill continues to hold a comfortable junior lead despite Ryan Smyth’s win, although the junior girls standings were not changed by the weekend results, Kellie Whitfield remaining the leader. There was a significant win by a newcomer to the sport at this level, Rachael Effeney, over the more fancied Laurina Neumann and Bridget Anderson.

The second day of the test match confirmed the Kiwi’s dominance of Trans-Tasman series this year. Ross Morrison led his team to a slightly closer win over the Aussies with Adrian Jackson and Robbie Preston closing the gap to 8 points. However, in the women the Kiwis reversed the day 1 result with excellent runs from the Smith sisters and much improved support from juniors Lizzie Ingham and Amber Morrison, but the continued good form of Susanne Casanova and Kathryn Ewels was not enough to help the Aussies. Over the two days New Zealand comfortably won the competition by 26 points.

Dave Shepherd and Jo Alison re-asserted their dominance of elite competition with good wins in the continuing hot and dry conditions.  In other classes of the 2-day Queensland Championships competitors enjoyed the rarity of clear running in a Queensland environment.  In M16 Oliver Crosato turned the tables on Gary Flynn, running the 7.4 Km course in 58 minutes but Gary retained the lead over the two days. Lance Reid continued with his slim lead over Tim McIntyre in M35. Russell Creed was delighted with his win in M55 as this was his first championship win in 26 years of orienteering. In M70 Clive Pope continued his dominance with a second fast run. With the 3 Neumann families picking up places in most of the junior age groups Krystal Neumann starred winning W16 by 8 minutes.  In other classes the best performances came from Linda Burridge  in W40 and Lynn Dabbs in W50.

The prestige Perseverance Cup (awarded to the runner with the greatest cumulative time over the 2 days) went to Denis Johnson of Toohey Forest for his marathon 5 hours over the two days.

The Championships were a special event for Queensland with the Test Matches, NOL and JNOL structured to maximise spectator options.  In today’s courses runners completed one loop and were reported from a radio control at a compulsory fence crossing point.  The second loop ended with an open run through the finish area leading to a map change and a final loop, and commentary from Blair Trewin and Neil Simson adding to the tension of the competition. Queensland has now opened up a new area for competition and all of this weekend’s competitors will go home with a small taste of the terrain and the environment to be used for the 2008 Australian Championships.

The first day of the Australia/NZ Test took place on Day 1 of the Queensland Championships near Maryborough, in hot and very dry conditions.  In the incredibly fast but vague terrain of Wild Boar Creek Darren Ashmore and Neil Kerrison led a Kiwi dominance in the men’s event, each running under 5 minutes per kilometre for the almost 7 Km courses. Adrian Jackson was close behind for Australia but the win to NZ was 27 to 9 points.  In the women’s event Australia turned the tables in a very close struggle.  Susanne Casanova of Australia won her first national and international event with an excellent 6 minute/Km run and although she was closely followed by Rachael Smith from NZ the 4^th place of Kathryn Ewels insured a 21 to 15  win to Australia.  Day 2 will be a different test over much longer distances and a more technical course.

In the NOL event Canberra Cockatoos showed their depth with comfortable wins in both men’s and women’s races.  Grant Bluett showed his ability to win the men’s event running under 31 minutes for the 6.7km course, beating Dave Shepherd by 12 seconds. In the women’s event, Jo Allison followed only 7 seconds behind Susanne Casanova. The junior NOL women’s event was dominated by Queensland with a great win to Laurina Neumann from Bridget Anderson.  The junior men supplied the event of the day with recent O-Ringen winner Simon Uphill (SA) winning by 4 seconds from Ryan Smyth (Tas) and Kieran Sullivan (Qld) a further 11 seconds behind in third.  It looks likely that Queensland will win the junior NOL on the day.

In other courses in the Queensland Championships Clive Pope showed that 70-year olds can still run under 10 minute/Km and at the other end of the age groups Gary Flynn flew round the 7 Km M16 course in 57 minutes. The M35 age group is a very close struggle between Lance Reid and Tim McIntyre who both covered the almost 9 Km in under 60 minutes, conquering the “horror” 2 Km leg over the vaguest part of the map.  M55 looks like being a very close call between 6 runners led by Russell Creed. In the women’s divisions there were few stand out performances except for Krystal Neumann in W16 with 40 minutes over 4.9 Km, Jacquie Rand, 47 minutes for 4.9 Km in W50 and Gayle Quantock-Simson, 54 minutes for 5.8 Km in W40.

Tomorrow will see day 2 of the championships on the new Graveyard Creek map with the competition expected to be as hot as day 1.

Grace Elson was the best placed Australian in the long course at the World University Orienteering Championships in the Slovak Republic, finishing 9th, 6:11 behind WOC bronze medallist Dana Brozkova of  the Czech Republic. Anna Sheldon finished in 19th place, and Kirsten Fairfax was 40th.

The men’s race was won by Michal Smola of the Czech Republic, and Australia’s only representative, Simon Goddard, finished 67th.

The 2006 Bendigo Ironman championships were run on “New Saint Mungo”, the sprint map used recently for the 2006 easter Prologue. The field was largely made up of elite orienteers, who had recently returned from Europe.

Favourite for the 4 x 2km handicap race was Troy De Haas, running his first race in Victoria in 6 years. After finishing first and second in the opening two races, it seemed unlikely that anyone would be able to shake him over the second half of the event. Adrian Jackson looked a chance with a second and a third, but but lost it with a blowout in the third race (15th position).

The field opened up with De Haas dropping a place in the final two loops (a 13th and a 7th place, allowing JWOC team member Evan Barr to take a tight lead after a series of consistent placings throughout the race (7th, 3rd, 1st, 4th).

Bendigo veteran Jim Russell followed up his overseas form with a solid third placing; knocking Jackson off the podium. Russell’s promising nephews, Bryan and Leon Keely, finished in 5th and 6th place, closely followed by Paul Liggins and  Bruce Arthur.

Further results and a detailed analysis can be found at: http://www.bendigo-orienteers.com.au

Rob Fell

The second ACT badge event for the year was held at Picaree Hill today. Runners were greeted with clear sunny skies (once the fog cleared) and headed out in the fast, but steep at times, spur-gully terrain.

In M21A there was a strong field, with Blair Trewin hopeful to be in form after returning from his European sojourn. But it was Ben Rattray who took an early lead and held it throughout the course. Second was Gareth Candy, running strongly to win many splits on the longer legs, but ending 1 minute behind Rattray. Trewin finished third. Mace Neve took out the W21A race from Natalie Smith, and Murray Scown, inspired by his JWOC experience, won a tough M17-20A course.

The event was a selection trial for the ACT Schools Team. Nadine Cejka returned from injury to win the W17-20A class, while Lachlan Dow won M16A.

Results

Results with splits