2005 Archive

Orienteering Australia has cancelled all existing agreements with paid officers and is seeking a suitable person or personnel to contract services in relation to two newly created positions:
Head Coach – from January 2006 to December 2007 for someone with coaching experience in orienteering
Executive Officer – from April 2006 for someone with administrative skills in sport.
Although details will be negotiated with the successful applicant or applicants, the notional commitment with respect to each position is $18 000 in return for a minimum of 500 hours per year.

Job descriptions for each role can be downloaded in pdf format:

• Head Coach
• Executive Officer

Applicants should forward a written expression of interest detailing their capacity to undertake the specific duties of a position to the President of Orienteering Australia.

An appointment or appointments will be made after 3 December 2005 and applications will be received until the time a contract or contracts are offered by the Board of Orienteering Australia.

For further information please direct enquiries as follows:
for Head Coach to Mike Dowling – Director (High Performance) – 03 6244 7173
for Executive Officer to Bob McCreddin – President – 08 9381 1727

David Brickhill-Jones has continued his outstanding Park World Tour form by finishing second behind series leader Oystein Kvaal Osterbo (NOR) in Jinhua. BJ has consolidated second place in the overall standings in front of new Swedish sprint sensation Martin Johansson (3rd in Jinhua), but will need to lift in the final two races to have any hope of overtaking Osterbo and taking the Park World Tour crown.

With her second victory in three starts, Tatiana Riabkina (RUS) has moved into second in the overall standings but will need a miracle to overtake runaway series leader Dana Brozkova (CZE). Brigitte Gruniger (SUI) and Maria Berqkvist (SWE) were close behind in second and third after each held the lead at some stage during the race. In an incredibly tight race only 37 seconds separated the top ten women in Jinhua.

There was good news for Ben Rattray who returned to racing only four days after dislocating his shoulder at his Park World Tour debut in Shanghai. Understandably Rattray took a conservative approach to the race but still managed a creditable 20th out of 25 competitors.

For further details and overall standings – PWT Website

David Brickhill-Jones has continued his outstanding Park World Tour form by finishing second behind series leader Oystein Kvaal Osterbo (NOR) in Jinhua. BJ has consolidated second place in the overall standings in front of new Swedish sprint sensation Martin Johansson (3rd in Jinhua), but will need to lift in the final two races to have any hope of overtaking Osterbo and taking the Park World Tour crown.

With her second victory in three starts, Tatiana Riabkina (RUS) has moved into second in the overall standings but will need a miracle to overtake runaway series leader Dana Brozkova (CZE). Brigitte Gruniger (SUI) and Maria Berqkvist (SWE) were close behind in second and third after each held the lead at some stage during the race. In an incredibly tight race only 37 seconds separated the top ten women in Jinhua.

There was good news for Ben Rattray who returned to racing only four days after dislocating his shoulder at his Park World Tour debut in Shanghai. Understandably Rattray took a conservative approach to the race but still managed a creditable 20th out of 25 competitors.

For further details and overall standings – PWT Website

Tatiana Riabkina continued her successful 2005 season with a breakthrough win in the Park World Tour (PWT) event in Suzhou, China. Following top-ten finishes in the middle distance and long-distance finals at WOC2005, Riabkina became the first Russian woman to win a PWT race.

Oystein Kvaal Osterbo, four seconds behind David Brickhill-Jones (BJ) in Tuesday’s race, won the Suzhou leg by three seconds from BJ, and now holds a 6 point advantage over BJ in the overall standings, with three races remaining.

PWT Website

David Brickhill-Jones, running his final series of races as an Australian orienteer, finished in 4th place in the first race of the Park World Tour China leg.

Martin Johansson from Sweden won the first race of the 5 race China leg of the tour, from Ukrainian veteran Yuri Omeltchenko, with another veteran, Chris Terkelsen of Denmark, in third place.

Australia’s only other entrant to the race was Ben Rattray, making his Park World Tour debut. Ben dislocated his shoulder during the race, and failed to finish – it’s likely he will be ruled out for the rest of the series, and may need to return home immediately for treatment.

In the women’s race, Dana Brozkova was only three seconds in front of Brigitte Gruniger, and a further 12 seconds to Tatiana Riabkina.

PWT Wesbite

The MTBO HPMG wishes to announce that two series of selection trials will be held in 2006. The trials will be raced over 2 days on 2 weekends in combination with events scheduled in both NSW and Victoria. The trials are open to anyone who is interested in racing and there will also be courses available for all standards of MTB Orienteers.

The first trial will be held in the Goldfields area of Victoria, on the weekend of February 25/26 2006. The second trial will be 4 weeks later near Newcastle in NSW, on the weekend of March 25/26 2006.

Details of nomination procedures for WMTBOC 2006 and format of each trial will be available on both the MTBO and OA web site within the next few weeks.

Ann Scown
Chair of Selectors

It looks like after a fair bit of hoo-haa MicrO will not be part of WOC 06. Although nothing official seems to have come out of IOF land the following message has been posted on the WOC 06 organisers website:

Press Release: MicrO off the menu
Posted by Kell Sønnichsen on October 18, 2005 at 15:35

MicrO is off the menu for the World Orienteering Championships next year in Denmark
The IOF Council decision made in Japan states that the implementation of the MicrO concept in the Middle Distance at next year’s World Orienteering Championships is conditioned upon an agreement of comprehensive TV coverage, which was to be signed before October 1st. The possibility of extended TV coverage involved cooperation between the organizers and the two Nordic TV channels, Danmarks Radio and TV2 Norge. The practical negotiations were positive and at the original deadline the only outstanding issue was the financing. Unfortunately even though the deadline was prolonged it has not been possible to find the funds to fully cover the additional costs.

Therefore we, the WOC 2006 organizers have informed the IOF that MicrO will not be put into practice at next year’s WOC. It is with regret that we take this decision – we believe that cooperation between TV channels from orienteering countries is a necessity if our sport is to be shown frequently on TV in the future.

However, WOC 2006 still has a contract with the national TV broadcasting company Danmarks Radio and will continue to work hard to secure high quality broadcasts from all four finals. Furthermore we hope to maintain a good working relationship with the Norwegian TV2 even if MicrO is no longer in the picture.

To all those people involved in this process we thank you for your efforts and hope that you will continue to do your best for our great sport.

The WOC 2006 Organizing Committee

For further information please contact:

Johan Fegar
Media Director
media.director@woc2006.dk
Telephone +45 2873 2323

David Brickhill-Jones (BJ) has announced his intention to compete as a British orienteer from 2006. BJ has been living in Scandinavia for several years, and has shown great potential, particularly in sprint races, winning a silver medal in the World Cup this year. In making his announcement, BJ said:

I wish to announce that from January 1st 2006 I will no longer be available to compete for Orienteering Australia. I have dual nationality with Australia and Great Britain and have decided from 2006 onwards that I will compete as a British orienteer. This decision is based on my personal circumstances, being based permanently in Europe, and the support available to me from British Orienteering to support me in my goal of becoming World Champion.

I recognise the huge amount of support which Orienteering Australia has given me, and the major role they have played in my development as an elite orienteer, which has made this decision extraordinarily difficult. While I will be competing for Great Britain, Australia is still my home, and I intend to put time and energy back into repaying Orienteering Australia for the support they have given me, starting by volunteering to help at the National Junior Training Camp in January.

I have been very proud to represent Australia and wish to sincerely thank everybody from Orienteering Australia who has assisted me in the past.

BJ’s final races for Australia will be the Park World Tour races in China in November.

Applications are invited for position of JWOC Manager for JWOC 2006-07. Please see attached.

Junior World Championships 2006-07

Australia and NewZealand have finalised their Test match program for 2006.  The first in NZL on 3-5 June (their long weekend) and the second on the QLD Champs NOL Event on 19/20 August.