Ineka Booth has had to withdraw from the Australian JWOC team due to a back injury. The injury is expected to put her on the sidelines for 4-6 weeks, making it unlikely that she would have recovered in time for Dubbo.
She will be replaced by the reserve, Rachel Effeney from Queensland, who had some excellent performances at Easter and should be a particularly strong contender in the sprint.
Booth remains eligible for JWOC until 2009 and will now be looking forward to Sweden next year.
Technical sand dune terrain of the Sand Mine and Broccoli Hill maps near Coffin Bay on southern Eyre Peninsula challenged SA Orienteers at a badge event and the SA Middle Distance Championships over the recent June Long weekend. Low visibility added to the challenge especially in the more subdued areas of both maps.
At the badge event, the M21A course of 12.3 km was won by JWOC contender Simon Uppill in 67.04, with Susanne Casanova also running this course in the time of 85:11. In other classes, Paul Hoopman running several age classes down in M35A, won the 9.4 km course in 84.50 mins. Local success went to Peg McAvaney of LI in W55A.
Simon was also successful in the Middle Distance Championships with 33.38 mins for 6.2 km in M21A. The Casanova sisters reverted to W21A for this event, with Jenny (photo) just edging out Susanne (41.54 and 42.12 respectively for 5.3 km). Mis-punches by Adelaide based competitors allowed local LI orienteer Peter Sheridan to take out the competitive M55A class
A feast of granite orienteering was offered over the Queen’s Birthday long weekend in Victoria.
The feature event of the weekend was the Winter Classic Badge Event at Melville Caves. SA’s Vanessa Round won the women’s elite race, from another junior, Belinda Lawford, just ahead of her mother, Jenny Bourne.
It was a tight affair in the men’s race with Jim Russell, Blair Trewin, Chris Naunton, Paul Liggins and Evan Barr all finishing within 4 minutes of Bruce Arthur’s winning time.
The weekend started with a middle distance state series race at Mt Korong. Physically demanding courses were won by Bruce Arthur and Jenny Bourne.
The final day was a chasing start with most interest in the W21 class. Belinda Lawford started 6 seconds ahead of Jenny Bourne, with Vanessa Round a further 15 seconds back. Round was too strong, but Belinda just managed to hang on for second ahead of her mother by a few seconds.
Bruce Arthur made it a clean sweep of the weekend, extending his lead from Chris Naunton and Blair Trewin on the final day.
Orienteering Australia is proud to announce another sponsor for its Australian Junior team – High5 sports nutrition products.
High5 Sports Nutrition products will be provided to the Australian Junior team in the build-up, and at the Junior World Orienteering Championships in Dubbo. High5 make a range of products including sports bars, gels and sports drinks. The products will aid the team during and after the competitions. Sports nutrition is becoming increasingly popular and the junior team will be able to provide their thoughts on the products to the wider community.
For information and purchasing of High5 products go to Fastgear.
For more information on the Junior World Orienteering Championships:www.jwoc2007.orienteering.asn.au
Time is running out to make tax-deductible donations to the Australian Sports Foundation for the 2006-07 financial year. Donations will be used to benefit the Orienteering Resources and Development project, which includes the sub-projects:
For donations to be tax-deductible in the 2006-07 financial year they need to be processed by the ASF by 29 June. This means they need to reach the Director (Finance) by 22 June.
All donations, no matter how large or small, will be greatly appreciated.
Further information and a donation form are available at http://dev.orienteering.asn.au/index.php/donations/
Orienteering Australia is proud to announce that “Skins”: the Australian company that make compression garments, will support the Australian Junior team at JWOC this year.
The sponsorship will mean that the Junior team are provided with a range of products for their own use. The garments are made to improve performance and aid recovery. The support extends to use of their compression shorts in the JWOC final, held at Dubbo Zoo. The sponsorship is another small way in which Orienteering Australia seeks to support its up and coming talent.
More information about Skins can be found at their website: www.skins.net
More information about the Junior World Orienteering Championships at:www.jwoc2007.orienteering.asn.au
Orienteering Australia has used a minor event on the eastern slopes of Mt Ainslie in Canberra to fine tune the latest technology to be introduced into orienteering, radio controls. The technology has been used in Europe in recent years and will be used for the first time in a major competition in Australia at the Junior World Orienteering Championships in Dubbo in July.
In the past the only way of getting information from the competition area to commentators was by having observers in the forest with two-way radios reporting the passing of competitors through a control. This new technology records details of the competitor and his or her progress time, and then transmits those details back to a computer at the finish. That information can be accessed directly by commentators and streamed onto the Internet, so that people anywhere in the world can be kept informed of the progress of an orienteering race in real time.
Project manager, Bill Jones commented, “This is exciting use of global technology. The basic electronic control recording equipment was made in Sweden and the event software was developed in Germany. The wireless modems were made in Tasmania and through support provided by Clear (a broadband service provider specializing in wireless technology) the results from the events in Dubbo will be streamed to a server in Sweden for the entire world to see (and hear) instantaneously.”
For commentator Jason McCrae, “This is the most significant advance in the use of technology since the introduction of an electronic control recording system in 2000 when the Orienteering World Cup was staged in Canberra. That gave us instant timing and control validation as competitors crossed the Finish line. This will now give us progressive times from about three checkpoints on the courses and enable us to project likely finish times and forecast winners. Interest builds as the clock runs down and the time for a fancied competitor to reach a radio control ticks away. Spectators and Internet watchers start to imagine what might be happening to the competitor out in the forest.”
The Junior World Orienteering Championships will be staged in Dubbo from 8 to 13 July and thanks to this new technology instant progress times and results will be available on the Internet.
Bob Mouatt
OA President
OA is pleased to announce the National League program for 2008.
The first round of the National League kicks off in Ballarat in early March. Round 2 will be Easter in Dubbo plus two races in Canberra the weekend after. This will conclude a busy March for our senior and junior elites.
Round 3 will take our elites to Tasmania and the Sun Coast Classic in May. Round 4 will be the Australian Championships Carnival in Maryborough, Queensland.
You’ll find the full details for the 2008 program under National League soon.
Four orienteers, all of whom have been selected in this year’s JWOC team, have been added to the National Junior Squad. They are:
Men: Rob Fell, Louis Elson
Women: Bridget Anderson, Belinda Lawford
All other team members (and reserves) were already members of the Squad.
The next major reselection of the squad will take place in October after the Oceania Championships carnival, although the selection panel have the option to add people to the squad before then if they see fit.
The Australian Team to contest the Junior World Championships has been announced following the final trials and National League races this weekend. The team will be spearheaded by South Australians Vanessa Round and Simon Uppill who won both trials in convincing fashion this weekend. The full team is:
Men: N Andrewartha (Tas), R Challen (WA), L Elson (Tas), R Fell (Vic), M Neve (Vic), S Uppill (SA).
Women: B Anderson (Qld), I Booth (ACT), J Davis (Tas), H Harding (ACT), B Lawford (Vic), V Round (SA).
The Trials and National League races were held in the tough granite terrain near Eugowra, designed to test the runners in terrain similar to that which will be used for JWOC. Uppill won his races by 6 minutes (from Rob Fell) and 16 minutes (from Louis Elson) over the two days, while Round beat Heather Harding on both days by 2 and 9 minutes respectively. These two appear to be the ones to watch in July.
In the Senior National League Grace Elson took out day 1, while Anna Quayle once again showed her liking to detailed terrain to win day 2. Julian Dent (NSW) and Matt Crane (GBR) swapped first and second place on the two days.
Full results for NOL11 and NOL12.
Splits for NOL11 and NOL12.