2005 Archive

The OA Appeal panel hearing Clare Hawthorne’s appeal against her non-selection in the 2005 WOC team has concluded. The OA Board has adopted their recommendation that the appeal be dismissed. Attached is a public report prepared by the Appeal panel outlining the circumstances of the appeal and the panel’s findings. A more detailed report was provided to the relevant parties.

2005 WOC Appeal – report

The minor watercourse that most of the six courses crossed a number of times was one of the most unifying aspects to the 2005 WA middle distance champs. With the average rainfall for June already passed, a flowing wide and deep river was present! The event was held in the granite detail of Mt Billy’s slopes – the location of the Easter 2003 day 3. With the start, finish and a spectator leg all in the assembly area the sounds of enormous splashes were clearly audible. Some competitors such as Rachel West and Cath Chalmers chose with speed and conservatism to cross at the start triangle ‘bridge’ again, others such as Eoin Rothery, Ian Dalton and Rhys Challen tested the rising depths around their shoulders.

All of the hard courses were technical – in the rock detail of this great hillside with a lot of changes in direction. These courses all mostly resembled a tangled knot, inspired by Noel Schoknecht’s Umana NOL middle distance course of May. Karen Staudte had a clean and fast run placing first for the W21s with Cath Chalmers, Rachel West and Leida Williams just behind. These top four within 9%, 10% and 17%. Craig Dufty, John Toomey, Eoin Rothery (pictured, just after this return to form) and Ian Dalton making up the top four in M21. These fastest times were within 2%, 20% and 26%. Rhys Challen running M18 and a strong contender for the Schools Team was just behind these top four.

The 44 seconds separating Craig Dufty and John Toomey was reflected in other close times throughout the event. Deb Dowson and Rosalie McCauley in W40s recorded the same time. With 40 seconds separating runners in the W45, 45 seconds in the M60 and 5 seconds between Rhys Kessell and Oscar McNulty in the M12s.

OA President Bob McCreddin was the controller for the event and ended up carrying out a great deal of work for us setters, even to the extent of rescuing a taped control site from an original minor watercourse bend that had become the middle of a lake. A great event to ‘run’ and see run.

Full results on Splitbrowser.

The Australian team for the World Orienteering Champs was announced by Orienteering Australia’s Chair of Selectors, Ian Prosser, this morning. The team consists of 5 women and 6 men who will compete in Aichi, Japan in August.

For the first time the selectors have nominated the disciplines that each team member will run, including the naming of the relay teams. David Brickhill-Jones has qualified for a relay run following his World Cup silver medal last month — Troy de Haas and Grant Bluett join him. But highest hopes are for the strong women’s relay team who came so close to a top result in 2004 — this year Hanny Allston, Jo Allison and Tracy Bluett will run the relay, and all three have shown strong recent form.

The team includes a WOC debutant: junior Julian Dent. Julian and Hanny Allston will also race the Junior World Championships (JWOC) in Switzerland in July. At the other end of the spectrum, the oldest hands on deck are Grant Bluett and Natasha Key (32 & 33 respectively). Both are aiming to compete strongly on terrain which is considered neutral ground for the strong European nations; rumours abound that they are both considering retirement after WOC.

The full team is listed below. See the OA High Performance page for more details on selection.

Message from Ian Prosser, Chair of Selectors, on the 2005 WOC team selection:

Women

Jo Allison: Sprint, Long, Relay
Hanny Allston: Middle, Long, Relay
Tracy Bluett: Middle, Relay
Al Jones: Sprint, Long
Natasha Key: Sprint, Middle

Men

David Brickhill-Jones: Sprint, Relay
Grant Bluett: Sprint, Long, Relay
Troy de Haas: Sprint, Long, Relay
Julian Dent: Middle
Dave Shepherd: Middle, Long
Rob Walter: Middle

Notes

This year the selectors were asked to not only name the team, but to decide who will run in each discipline.  This is to give athletes some certainty in preparation for the event.  The team management may change the allocation to disciplines where there are special circumstances such as illness or injury.

Australian WOC teams are composed of a minimum of four women and four men with additional athletes, up to a maximum of seven men and seven women, included on the basis of their international competitiveness and how they fit into the team in particular disciplines.  Athletes nominate their preference for particular disciplines but the selectors are free to allocate disciplines for the best good of the overall team.  They consider factors such as the record of each athlete in each discipline and the schedule of races during WOC.

Ian will be hard to contact this week. If you have any queries please contact Jason McCrae (Jason.McCrae@act.gov.au, 0407 510 955).

The Australian Bushrangers held off a fast-finishing New Zealand Pinestars for a 113-103 win in the Test Match, contested over the last three days near Daylesford. The 45-27 lead that the Australians established on the first day proved to be enough to take the Test Match overall, despite New Zealand scoring narrow wins on each of the last two days. They went into the final day today 14 points behind but could only make up four.

At the front end it was more of the same. Grant Bluett made it three wins from as many races, although this was the closest of the three as he took the victory by four seconds from Julian Dent. Dent and Dave Shepherd made up the placings, as they had in both of the two previous trials. Hanny Allston also made it a 100% record from the two races she contested in a race that was even closer, holding on by three seconds from Jo Allison, who added a second runner-up position to her sprint win on Friday. Tania Robinson made up the placings for the New Zealanders.

Grant Bluett and Hanny Allston stamped their authority on the final series of selection trials for 2005 WOC in Japan in August. Grant showed selectors his winning form in yesterday’s sprint Race at Hepburn was no fluke. Bluett’s 38-second win today over Dave Shepherd and a further 2 minutes to fast-improving Julian Dent will be tested tomorrow in the final middle-distance trial at Mt Egerton. Hanny Allston ran smoothly and within herself to post an impressive 3 minute 20 second win over Jo Allison, with a further 3 and a half minutes to Tracey Bluett.

A great down-under spirit was evident at the finish as the New Zealand WOC team competed alongside their Aussie mates. Best of the Kiwis was evergreen Tania Robinson, third behind Allston and Allison in the women’s race, while Chris Forne was the best of the Kiwi men 41 seconds behind third-place Julian Dent. In the ANZ Test Match the Aussies who held a good lead after yesterday’s sprint race, posted a narrow 19-17 win in the men’s but NZ convincingly won the women’s race 21-15. Australian team selection for Japan will announced next Wednesday (1 June) on this website.

Blake Gordon

Men’s Classic

1 Grant Bluett AUS Australia 110:43
2 David Shepherd AUS Australia 111:21
3 Julian Dent AUS Australia 113:51
4 Chris Forne NZL New Zealand 114:32
5 Rob Preston AUS Australia 116:31

Women’s Classic

1 Hanny Allston AUS Australia 82:15
2 Jo Allison AUS Australia 85:35
3 Tania Robinson NZL New Zealand 86:32
4 Tracy Bluett AUS Australia 89:02
5 Rachel Smith NZL 90:50

The Australian Bushrangers have taken the lead in the Australia – New Zealand test match today. Scores were 24-12 in the men, and 22-14 in the women. Chris Forne and Tania Robinson were the leading Kiwis (both placing 4th), but their efforts were overshadowed by Grace Elson and Julian Dent who picked up maximum points.

In the Australian WOC Trials, Jo Allison narrowly won the women’s race, with other standout performers being Grace Elson (2nd) and Kathryn Ewels (3rd) – both of whom are fighting for a place in the team.  The men’s race contained few surprises, with Grant Bluett winning by a minute from Julian Dent and David Shepherd.

The 2005 South Australian Middle Distance Championships was held in the Burra region, approximately two hours north of Adelaide. It was the second of two events held in the area over the Adelaide Cup long weekend. The Sunday event was a Badge event run by Yalanga Orienteers on the Merridee map. The next day was the SA Middle Distance Championships, held on Bri Glen, a map directly adjoining Merridee to the north.

The top three places in the open class (M21-39A) were hotly contested with less than 4 minutes separating them. Lachlan Hallett managed to catch Simon Uppill and Miguel Clark to take out the 6.4km course in 36:38, two minutes clear of Uppill and 4 minutes ahead of Clark. Hallett started well and stayed ahead for the entire race, finishing strongly with the fastest last 5 legs, catching both Uppill and Clark at the last control. Clark started well, only 11 seconds behind Lachlan at the third control, but then his lack of stamina showed as he dropped off the pace losing two minutes over the following two legs to let Uppill into second place. Greg Morcom also started strongly, ahead of Uppill in the early stages of the course but dropped in the second half to finish in 4th place. Tyson Hillyard,Warwick Dougherty, and John Nieuwenhoven rounded out the field. Sadly, another hot contender for a fast time, Conrad Elson (from Tasmania, living in South Australia for the year), was unable to finish due to an injury, sensibly preferring to preserve himself for the junior world orienteering championships later in the year.

The womens open class (W21-39A) was a two woman race at the top, with Susanne Casanova taking the 4.6 Km event ahead of Zebedy Hallett by three minutes in a time of 31:21. The two matched each other early with Hallett leading at the third control, but the experience and endurance of Casanova prevailed and she took control from then on, staying in the lead for the rest of the race. It was a great run by Susanne who had run second in the M21 event the day before only 5 minutes behind Lachlan Hallett. Third place was a closer affair between Miriam Whittington, Jenny Casanova, Katherine Radford, and Lexie Ashforth. Whittington finished in 44:11, with Jenny Casanova 20 seconds behind, Radford two minutes back and then Ashforth only a further 20 seconds. Michelle Soar and Edda Keskula finished out the field.

In the junior classes, M/W17-20A, Jason Nicolson and Vanessa Round won the men’s and women’s events respectively. The men’s race (4.6km, the same course as the open women’s event) was quite close with only 4 minutes separating the top 5. Tristan Lee started strongest leading Nicolson at the 4th control. A two minute mistake then lost him the lead that he was unable to regain, finishing second, one minute behind Nicolson. The rest of the field were all on a similar time until the 4th control and only 2-3 minutes behind the leaders. Andrew Slattery then had a great second half to move into second place briefly at the 7th before finishing third, less than a minute behind Lee. Michael Roberts and Max Sankauskas finished off the top five with times of 41:05 and 41:39 respectively. Vanessa Round comfortably outran the rest of the junior women, finishing in 27:32, over 10 minutes clear of Mallory Hughes and Rebecca Hembrow. Both Hughes and Round lost a significant amount of time on the second leg which left them to play catch up for the rest of the race, leaving little chance of pulling Round in. Shannon Nicholson, Nicole Such and Peta Johannsen finished out the field.