Next race is the long, or the “classic’ as it use to be known.
Australia has 4 runners, they are
11:51 Henry McNulty
12:03 Brodie Nankervis
14:46 Krystal Neumann
14:52 Aislinn Prendergast
Plus 8 hours for those viewing in Australia
You can find more about WOC here
and on IOF Eventor
Jim Russell
The Australian team is now ready for the first race at the World Orienteering Championships near Sarpsborg, Norway. The Middle Qualification will be held from 10.00am Norwegian time.
The athletes representing Australia will be
10:06 Bridget Anderson
10:25 Simon Uppill
10:25 Patrick Jaffe
10:40 Belinda Lawford
10:48 Krystal Neumann
10:55 Matthew Doyle
You can find more about WOC here
and on IOF Eventor
Jim Russell
With the 2019 World Orienteering Championships set to start in Norway next week, Orienteering Australia has published a history of Australian WOC performances, since Rod Dominish became the first Australian to compete at WOC in 1972.
Hanny Allston remains Australia’s only medallist with her sprint gold in 2006. Four other Australians have top-ten individual results: Kathryn Ewels (Preston) (5th, 2009 sprint), Troy de Haas (7th, 2005 sprint), Grant Bluett (8th, 2003 sprint) and Natasha Key (10th, 2003 sprint). Australia’s best relay result was 4th for the women in 2006, through Jo Allison, Grace Elson (Crane) and Hanny Allston, while the men were 6th in 1981 and 2001.
Natasha Key has been in 10 WOC teams, with Jo Allison, Simon Uppill and Vanessa Round in 9. Uppill will make his 10th appearance next week, and with 29 WOC events already under his belt, is also expected to pass the Australian record of 30, held jointly by Key and Allston. Grant Bluett’s 8 WOCs are also noteworthy as most of his career took place when WOC was only held every second year.
A full list of Australian WOC results is here, and a summary of each team member’s results is here.
Today we finished our Camp at Kirkebygden, and we shifted to the WOC accommodation in Sarpsborg, Norway. Kirkebygden has been an excellent place to stay, so close to the forest that we train in, but we need to move on and are now looking forward to the World Orienteering Championships that are now only 6 days away.
Over the next few days, we will finalise our preparation, and by the weekend, the team will be altogether, and ready for the first race, the Middle Qualification on Tuesday.
You can find more about WOC here
and on IOF Eventor
Jim Russell
Orienteering Australia’s resources have been updated to add two items of interest to mappers, and especially to beginners.
OA Mapping Officer Neil Barr has made available a blog link that concentrates upon freeware tools and fills a gap to match the OCAD wiki. The blog link can be found here. Neil has also advised that more resources will be made available in the near future prior to the forthcoming Mappers Workshop being held during the Oceania Carnival in October. More information on the workshop can be found here.
ONSW’s Hamish Mackie has made available the first part of a “How To” guide for beginners . The guide can be found here.
Australian mappers might not be aware that Hamish has also created a public group Facebook page Orienteering Mappers Australia. The page was created as a discussion group for people to learn and share information about creating and editing maps for orienteering.
Training continues for the Team that are at the pre-camp at Kirkebygden, while the last of the Australian team members have arrived in Europe this morning. Training today is on Våler Varde, just to the South of the accommodation. Most of the maps are close by, with them all a short 3 or 4 k drive away, or an easy walk.
You can find more about WOC here
and on IOF Eventor
Jim Russell
Here’s your chance to represent Australia in the sport you love.
The Australia / New Zealand Challenge will be run in conjunction with all four disciplines (sprint, relay, long, middle) of the Oceania Championships from 28 Sep to 6 Oct 2019.
Australia and New Zealand will contest all classes from M/W16 up to and including M/W70 except M35, W35, M65 and W65.
To be eligible for team selection, nominations are required in Eventor by 7 Sep 2019 at: https://eventor.orienteering.asn.au/Events/Show/8739
For non-elite A/NZ Challenge classes, selection will be based on performances in the last two national carnivals over all disciplines (sprint/middle/long and relay).
For elite classes, Bushrangers selection criteria will apply, with the top 3 of those selected for the A/NZ Challenge.
Nominate now to be selected to represent Australia!
Tracy Marsh, Cathy McComb & Bruce Arthur
Selection Panel Members
Orienteering Australia is considering ways of improving the National Orienteering League calendar and is seeking views from across the orienteering community. A discussion paper on the NOL and some options for the future can be found here.
If you would like to comment on how to improve NOL you can complete an online survey or email your comments to Ian Prosser the High Performance Administrator (ian.prosser11@gmail.com).
The 2019 Junior Championships finished today with the traditional relay events, but the day before’s Middle Distance Final saw Australia’s Aston Key achieve yet another podium finish.
Starting as one of the last three runners in the A Final Aston found how hard it can be at the top. With less than 2 minutes separating the top five men’s placings, Aston secured a 5th place narrowly missing out on a medal after losing less than 30 secs on two legs. In a tight race at the top, Aston was in the hunt for a medal in 2nd/3rd place, but lost time late in the race on leg 11 to 12, with not enough distance left in the race to recover. 
But JWOC 2019 will be an event to remember for Aston with gold and bronze medals and a podium finish to go home with. Orienteering Australia congratulates Aston on three great performances, across the three orienteering disciplines. Well done Aston.
The Middle Distance Final results can be found here, the race splits found here, and the courses here.
Thanks also to Orienteering Tasmania’s Christine Brown (and JWOC2019 Jury member) for these photos from the Middle Distance Finals.
In the relay races, the Mens #1 team finished a creditable 13th, less than 13 minutes behind winners Norway, and the Australian Women finished 21st.
Relay race results can be found here, the splits here, and the courses here.
In the teams event, Australia finished 13th. Full results here. Photos from the relay races can be found here.
Three elite men will be representing Australia in the upcoming World MTB Orienteering Championships (WMTBOC) at Viborg, Denmark from July 26 – August 4th.
Team captain Ricky Thackray, from Western Australia, will be racing at his 5th WOC (World Orienteering Championships) after debuting in 2012. Queenslander Joel Young is looking forward to his 2nd WOC after his inaugural races last year in Austria were hampered by several mechanical problems. Tim Doman (Newcastle, NSW) is making his Australian debut after winning two of the three selection races at the NSW Championships in April. His background in mtb crosscountry and adventure racing, including a win at the recent GeoQuest Half, means that he brings good fitness and skills to the team.
Ricky & Joel are already in Europe and have competed in major events in both Lithuania and the Czech Republic. Ricky did exceptionally well winning 2 days and placing 5th overall in his age class at the Czech 5 Days. Tim flies out shortly to join them in Denmark on July 20th for a week’s training in preparation for the Championships. The Danish terrain should suit the Aussies as its relatively flat with an emphasis on technical decision making.
In the World Championships each rider competes in 4 individual events and a 3 person relay. The individual events differ in distances, planned winning times and technical difficulties. The “sprint” is only a 25 minute winning time for the optimal 11 kilometre course. However it is held in complex bush and urban terrain including the narrow laneways of old town Viborg, and requires riders to visit 31 control points and make many quick decisions. In contrast the winning time for the “long” course of 46 kilometres is 110 minutes, with some of the 27 controls being situated 3 or 4 kilometres apart, requiring good route choices and benefiting riders with elite fitness and endurance. The Australian team is especially keen to push for a top 10 finish in the “relay,” a 45 minute race for each rider, after finishing a disappointing 14th last year.
The team will be managed by Queenslander Andrea Harris, both a keen mtb and foot orienteer, who is a former foot O WOC team member herself. New Zealander Marquita Gelderman will be coach for both the Australian & NZ teams.
Kay Haarsma