2007 Archive

The Victorian Nuggets have won three of the four divisions of the 2007 National Orienteering League after a tumultuous day at the Australian Relay Championships.

The women’s relay was won by South Australian JWOC star Vanessa Round, who outsprinted Cassie Trewin (ACT) in the finish chute. NSW finished 3rd and Victoria 4th.

In the men’s relay the highly fancied Victorian team took a tumble when Troy de Haas failed to punch a spectator control. This left a comfortable win the for the NSW Stingers (Julian Dent, Eric Morris & Robbie Preston) ahead of South Australia. Further down the standings it was up to Jim Russell, in Victoria’s number 2 team, to overtake Jason McCrae (ACT) in the final km to see Victoria home in the Mens National League.

The Nuggets won the Senior Men’s National League with 127 points from the NSW Stingers on 122, the Senior Women’s with 129 points from the Southern Arrows on 108, and the Junior Men’s with 81 from the Tassie Foresters on 71.  The Queensland Cyclones won the Junior Women’s title with 81 points from the Victorian Nuggets 62.

Dave Shepherd and Hanny Allston are the Australian Long Distance orienteering champions after winning the open classes at the Championships on Saturday.

Shepherd was a commanding winner in M21E, finishing ten minutes clear of the field after an especially dominant first half; he was already eight minutes ahead by halfway. It was his third title in four years. His closest challenger was the New Zealander Karl Dravitzki, with Eric Morris completing the placings.

Allston was not as dominant as she can be, and some errors in the first half saw her trailing Grace Elson at times. She was still only 16 seconds ahead at the ninth control, beyond halfway, but took control over the second half of the course to extend her lead to three and a half minutes. Elson was second, just ahead of Jo Allison after a steady run.

Louis Elson backed up from a busy JWOC week to win M17-20E by six minutes from Bryan Keely, whilst W17-20E was won by nine minutes by Mariann Ulvestad, twin sister of dual JWOC gold medallist Siri. Aislinn Prendergast was the best Australian to complete an excellent week, just ahead of Krystal Neumann.

Tasmania took out the 2007 Australian Schools Championships after a consistent performance in the relays on Friday. As in the individual event, their effort was led by Oscar Phillips, who spearheaded their victory in the senior boys’ when he came from two minutes behind on the last leg, and then held off a strong effort from NSW’s Josh Roberts to see his team home. Their victory was settled with solid performances across the other three age groups, with their senior girls coming second and both junior teams fourth.

Queensland won both girls’ relays, predictably in the junior division, where they were almost 30 minutes clear of the field, and memorably in the seniors. With the short post-JWOC day the third-leg mass start became a significant factor. Krystal Neumann and Aislinn Prendergast both started in it, with Neumann needing to catch a minute on leaders Tasmania and NSW, and then pull another ten minutes clear to claim victory. She had eight minutes on Catherine Hewitt at the final spectator control, and extended that further on the final loop to take the victory. Prendergast, who narrowly beat Neumann across the line, almost pulled off an even more sensational result, but fell four minutes short of the 29-minute gap she needed on NSW to snatch third.

Queensland’s challenge for overall victory was snuffed out by a mispunch on the second leg of the senior boys. They would have finished behind Tasmania anyway, but that result saw them fall behind NSW and Victoria too. Both those states had a good day. Victoria had a particularly good one, scoring the most points on relay day after their junior boys narrowly held off NSW after three close legs and an inexperienced junior girls’ team got an unexpected second, and took a share of second place. NSW joined them after Thea Richardson did just enough on the last leg to hold off Prendergast.

Final scores: Tasmania 44, Victoria and NSW 40, Queensland 37, ACT 28, SA 22, WA 6.

The Australian Schools Honour Team will be named on Saturday, and the team to contest to Schools Test against New Zealand in October will be named on Sunday.

Peter Jackson passed away on Wednesday, July 11 after a two-year battle against cancer. He was a major contributor to the sport in Victoria over a period of three decades, including a stint as VOA President during the first half of the 1990’s, and later roles as the VOA’s Mapping Officer, a member of the VOA’s Technical Committee and a regular controller for many years. He was a mainstay of the Rockhoppers club for most of its existence, and later became a founder member of the Melbourne Forest Racers.

Peter was also a serious competitor at the masters level. He had numerous championship placings to his name, and won two national titles, in 1988 (M35A) and 1998 (M45A) from 24 starts. As recently as last October, with his illness well advanced, he took out the resident title in M55A at the Victorian Long Distance Championships, and was second in M55AS at Easter in his last major event.

He will also be a significant loss to the Australian scientific community. Until last year he was head of the Co-operative Research Centre for Clean Power Generation, and was a leader in the effort to develop methods of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power stations.

The Australian orienteering community extends its deepest sympathies to Peter’s wife Carolyn, and their children Adrian, Melinda and Timothy.

Tasmania take a one-point lead into the relays at the Australian Schools Championships after a good individual day on Tuesday, using the same area as the JWOC long distance the previous day. Four states are still in realistic contention, with Queensland only a point behind, and NSW and Victoria also within striking distance.

Tasmania were led by Oscar Phillips, who added a senior title to his junior title from last year. On probably the most technical area used for the Schools Championships, he slipped up to three minutes behind the lead around halfway, but ran a strong second half. He took the lead for the first time when Simon Mee, who had been the fastest to the spectator control, lost eight minutes at 15. At that point he was still in a close struggle with Joshua Blatchford, but Blatchford also lost 90 seconds there, giving Phillips a two-minute lead that he held to the end of the course. Oliver Crosato came third after a steady run, just ahead of Leon Keely and Lachlan Dow.

Aislinn Prendergast had a breakthrough win on Saturday when she took out W17-20E at the NSW Championships, and she showed it was no fluke on Tuesday. She lost a minute at the first control, but took command of the race on the long seventh leg and was never headed thereafter. Three others were within three minutes; pre-race favourite Krystal Neumann was just over a minute behind, whilst Tasmanian pair Catherine Hewitt and Claire Butler, both of whom had the lead at points early in the race, filled third and fourth.

Queensland dominated the junior girls as Glennie Nottle and Katie Doyle took out first and second. Nottle was not the fastest in the field, winning only one split, but she didn’t put a foot wrong and was in front by halfway. Doyle, who only got a run at the last moment when Lilian Burrill pulled out the day before the race because of injury concerns, closed the gap from a minute to 18 seconds over the last few controls, but was unable to quite make up the ground. Burrill ran anyway as a reserve and beat everyone else in the field, but the official third place went to Georgia Parsons, ahead of Helen Mason-Fyfe who lost her chance when she dropped two minutes on the long sixth leg.

It was also Queensland’s day in the junior boys after a great battle between Kurt Neumann andTasmania’s Sam Webb. They were never separated by more than 15 seconds, but the long seventh leg saw Neumann get just far enough clear to stay in front to the end, scoring by 10 seconds. James Robertson took third, just ahead of his more fancied Victorian team-mates Todd Neve and Dave Mallen.

The competition will conclude with the relays on Friday afternoon.

Team scores after individual: Tasmania 23, Queensland 22, NSW 20, Victoria 18, ACT 14, SA 11, WA 4.

The Victorian Nuggets turned probability into certainty when they wrapped up the women’s National League at the NSW Championships on Saturday. Whilst they only managed fourth place with a depleted team, their worst result of the season, they still finished ahead of the South Australians, which was all they needed to do.

The other title which was settled on Saturday was the women’s individual. Grace Elson’s third place, combined with other results, was enough to give her an unassailable lead going into the final individual round at the Australian Long Distance Championships next weekend. She joined Matt Crane as the senior individual winner for this year.

The Southern Arrows’ strong challenge in the men’s competition hit a major hurdle on Saturday; with Kerrin Rattray injured and Simon Uppill otherwise engaged at JWOC, they only had one finisher and slipped six points behind the Nuggets. With Rattray out for the week and Uppill only running the relay, the NSW Stingers, who closed to within 15 points with a win today, might be the greatest threat to the leaders.

Both individual races saw double-digit margins. Neither Dave Shepherd nor Hanny Allston are in contention for season honours through missing too many races early on, but both recorded comprehensive wins, dominating the opposition. Both races saw close battles for the minor placings. New Zealander Neil Kerrison edged out Rob Preston for second, whilst a four-minute error at the first control stopped Grace Elson from getting ahead of Jo Allison.

There were few major moves in the junior division with the leading contenders all absent at JWOC. The Victorian Nuggets and Queensland Cyclones continue to hold useful leads in the men’s and women’s team competitions, although both will probably need to wait until the relays to settle their titles. The junior men’s individual competition will go down to the final day, Kieran Sullivan closing to within five points of Tristan Lee when he became the first person to win three races in an exceptionally even season. Aislinn Prendergast scored her first win at this level over the Neumann sisters, Krystal and Laurina, but none made any meaningful impression on the absent series leader Heather Harding.

The newly released Bulletin 3 gives the athletes more information about how long the WOC-races will be, and the long distance race will create a historic moment with the longest WOC-courses ever for both men and women.

The men will fight out a course of 18.1 kilometres with 28 controls. This is the first time a WOC-course will pass the 18 Km mark. The previous longest race was in Sweden in 1989, 17.7 Km. Last year’s course in Denmark was also long, 17.5 Km.

The womens course for the long distance race will also be the longest ever at 11.9km. This is just 100 metres longer than the course in Switzerland 2003. There will, however, not be a record for number of controls. The men’s course in Switzerland 2003 had 34 controls.

It remains to be seen if the races will be the fastest ever for a long distance. Petter Thoresen ran close to 5min/km in 1989, and this means the race this year must have a winning time close to 95 minutes to be the fastest race ever. Will it be possible?

Jørn Sundby
Head of international press and information WOC 2007
joern.sundby@gmail.com

It was the Norwegians, Latvians and New Zealanders who first braved the cold, wet and blustery conditions to begin their JWOC preparation amongst the slippery granite of Kahli’s Rocks. Most of the juniors had a ‘map walk’ which allows them to slowly get used to the new terrain and get an idea of how it is mapped. Heavy clouds which brought intermittent showers occasionally parted to allow some sunshine through bringing slight relief to the low temperatures of approx 6°C.

The Australian team, which assembled in Orange overnight, did not visit Kahli’s Rocks instead resting for the morning and conserving energy for the afternoon’s speed session around the Orange campus of Charles Sturt University.

Soon after their arrival the team received their new Trimtex uniforms. Predominantly yellow, the new uniforms are not only comfortable, they provide the team with a real identity that not only lifts team spirit but also allows spectators to easily recognise the stars they will be cheering. Along with the uniforms they also accepted some of their sponsors’ products last night including Skins compression garments — which are already being put to good use, and High 5 energy gels, recovery bars and isotonic drink supplements.

With the final teams arriving over the next couple of days the JWOC atmosphere is building with the teams not allowing the weather to hinder their preparations. Australia will be one of a host of teams visiting Gumble Creek tomorrow for some more granite familiarisation.