2008 Archive

Women

Some of Queensland’s talented junior mountain bike orienteers will feature in a story that will go to air nationally on the children’s program “Totally Wild” on Network 10 at 4pm on Wednesday 12 November.

The story was filmed in the Bunyaville State Forest, on Brisbane’s northwestern outskirts, in July with Chris Firman, Kurt Neumann and Emily and Stephanie Cantwell starring in the production. Presenter, Pip Russell, ably handled her borrowed bike to learn the finer points of MTBO and we all had a lot of fun filming segments for the story.

Although we spent several hours filming in the forest, the finished story will probably only be 4 – 5 minutes in length but it should be a good promotion for MTBO throughout Australia.

The Totally Wild website offers viewing of episodes for free.

Liz Bourne
Development Officer – Orienteering Queensland

A number of orienteers took advantage of cooler weather and even some rain to participate in today’s inaugural Mt Majura Vineyard Three Peaks, Two Peaks and One Peak Classics over Mt Majura, Mt Pleasant and Mt Ainslie. Julian Dent had a sizzling run to win the Three Peaks 26 kms course over Mt Majura, Mt Pleasant and Mt Ainslie in 1 hr 48 mins 51 secs, three minutes clear of New Zealander Will Smith who ran 1:51:39, and orienteering international Rob Walter who clocked 1:52:55. It was an orienteering double in the women with Shannon Jones overtaking Fitzroy Falls marathon champion Kate Hodson in the closing stages to win by 31 seconds in 2:12:37, with another orienteer Sandra Oliver third in 2:15:33.

World junior cross country representative Emily Brichachek won the Two Peaks 20 kms outright in 1:32:10, burning off her training partner Scott Imhoff who was fastest male in 1:34:25. Belinda Lawford had a great run to be 4th female in 1:52:00 and Mace Neve was 6th in 1:52:00.

Laura Garvican had an impressive mountain running debut to be fastest female in the One Peak 7.3kms and second outright in 40:12, with Australian junior orienteering representative Georgia Parsons second in 43:03 and veteran orienteer Kris Nash third in 57:00.

John Harding

In August, the Hon. Kate Ellis MP, Minister for Sport announced the appointment of an independent expert panel to investigate possible reforms into Australia’s sporting systems. The panel consists of  Mr David Crawford and 4 others and their (abbreviated) terms of reference are :

•  continued elite sporting success,
•  physical activity as a preventative health approach,
•  pathways from junior sport to elite and professional sport
•  approach to sports science, research and technology,
• funding base for sport through corporate sponsorship, media and any recommended reforms.

The OA Board has co-opted Dennis Trewin to handle the OA submission to the panel, and this was provided on 15 October (with assistance from the OA Board and Bob Mouatt). Yesterday, Dennis, Ben Rattray (OA Director, Development) and Bill Jones (OA President) met with three members of the panel, Mr David Crawford, Ms Pam Tye, and Mr Colin Carter to discuss the submission.

OA was given a 30 minute time slot to put their case to the panel. Bill Jones opened with an introduction of our committee and some brief statistics on orienteering, Dennis then spoke about the submission and why we had come to particular recommendations, and Ben followed up with some points on elite orienteering. The sport panel then asked questions about the OA submission, as well as a significant number on OA/board/council and States relationship set-up. By this stage 30 minutes was up and the sport panel complimented OA on its submission.

At least one other OA member has made a submission and the door is open until 7 November if anyone else wants to do likewise. Orienteers who would like to view the OA submission can request a copy from the OA office.

World Champion Mountain Bike Orienteer Adrian Jackson is currently honing his mountain biking skills even further by competing in the legendary Crocodile Trophy race in Far North Queensland.  This event regularly attracts world class road and mountain bike cyclists.

Despite crashing in stage one he has been riding well in the Merida – Flight Centre team and in stage 5 placed an outstanding 2nd over the 99km course.  The race has been dominated by Czech republic riders.   To follow his progress look at results and news stories (including a photo of Adrian on velonews from stage 1).

The SA MTBO Championships were held in ideal conditions on October 19th in Mt Crawford Forest.
Andrew Slattery updated the “Portuguese Bridge” map and set interesting courses that had people constantly making both macro and micro route choice decisions.
In the elite women it was a 2 rider race between Kay Haarsma and Anthea Williams, both of whom had been “training” whilst bike touring in different parts of Europe.  Kay’s greater experience came to the fore and enabled her to take a 20 minute win and also fastest time on the 25.5km course 2.

The men’s elite had nine really competitive riders and each new finisher seemed to beat the previous set time. The 32 km course had the last control some 3 kilometers from the uphill finish shute, so there were some barnstorming finishes. Just 3 and a half minutes seperated the top four placegetters. Bruce Greenhalgh, the last starter emerged from the forest just in time to claim a 1 minute 26 seconds victory over the evergreen Steve Sullivan, with the speedy Adelaide Mt Bike crosscountry rider Dave Clark just another 14 seconds back.  Fourth placed Ian Fehler, a relative newcomer to mtbo, lost many minutes taking a “fun but very rocky and slow route choice” along the Mt Crawford ridge.    Main places and times were:

Men – 32km
1.57.30  Bruce Greenhalgh
1.58.56  Steve Sullivan
1.59.10  Dave Clark
2.01.05  Ian Fehler

Women  – 25.5km
1.43.17  Kay Haarsma
2.05 51    Anthea williams

Bruce Arthur took out both the middle and long distance events at this weekend’s Victorian Championships, while Natasha Key won the long distance and shared the middle distance title with Laurina Neumann.

Arthur, who has been hampered by injury this spring, returned to form with two very narrow wins. In Saturday’s middle distance he and Blair Trewin were level with two controls and 300 metres to go, but he was too fast over the final section and took the race by seven seconds, with Simon Goddard continuing his good Australian Championships form to come third. In Sunday’s long distance his margin was only one second greater, this time over Paul Liggins, with Trewin another 46 seconds back in third place. This time the long 24th leg, about two-thirds of the way through the course, was decisive; Arthur gained a minute on the other two there which proved to be critical. Another encouraging result came from Bryan Keely, whose season has been ruined by injury; his fourth place, three minutes behind, was easily the best run of his

Natasha Key has been little-sighted since her return from WMOC, but returned to the competition scene with a bang. On Saturday her race was even closer than that of the men; she and Laurina Neumann, who was coming from an impressive Australian Championships week, could not be separated in a rare first-place tie. Neumann made up four seconds between the last control and the finish, with both too fast for WOC representative Vanessa Round in third. On Sunday, Key and Neumann were again together, but this time it was on the ground, with Key catching Neumann six minutes late in the course. Round was instead the closest challenger, but once Key opened up a lead of around a minute in the first quarter of the course, it stayed stable around that mark for the remainder of the race. Neumann was able to hold third.

There were numerous interesting results in other classes. Hugh Moore impressed in easily bettering a large M60 field on both days. Rebekah Sunley and Mary Fleming went one-all in two close W16 races, while James Robertson took a close long-distance M16 race over Todd Neve and Dave Mallen. Street-O legend Tony Bird made a rare bush appearance to win the M55 middle distance. Carolyn Jackson won two good battles against Sue Neve in W50, and Kathy Liley prevailed over Libby Meeking and Ruth Goddard in a close W60 contest.

The Western Australian MTBO State Championships were held this weekend.  For the first time a Middle Distance Championship was held on Saturday, with the Long Distance on Sunday.  Both events were held on a new map in the Carinayh/Pickering Brook area in the hills close to Perth.

Duncan Sullivan set an exciting and challenging middle distance event that saw a clear winner in the form of Ricky Thackray for the men’s, ahead of Pete Shanley and Jason Wallington.   All three place getters achieving their best ever results ahead of more fancied riders in the form of John Toomey, Eoin Rothery and Ian Dalton.  The women’s race was a fairly close affair with Cath Chalmers and Jen Graham-Talyor swapping the lead a few times.  They were closely follwed by Sarah Dunnage.  In the end Cath took out the win.

Sunday’s Long Distance event was set by Tony Simpkins and the courses tested the riders to their limits.  After a dry end to winter, there was plenty of pea gravel around to test weary muscles and frayed nerves with Ricky Thackray pulling off another convincing win. Today Jen Graham-Taylor put her superior fitness and commitment to training to good use with a comprehensive victory over yesterday’s winner.

Full results

The High Performance Management Group of Orienteering Australia announces the 2009 National MTBO Series program. The 2009 National MTBO Series will consist of 7 races conducted over three rounds. The Series rolls away in 2009 in Victoria in late April followed by the National MTBO Championships in June. In September, the MTBO Series heads to Queensland to finish the year. Full details below

Round 1                              Victoria                                      Victorian Championships

1. April 25    Middle Distance                                 Woodend, Vic
2. April 26   Long Distance                                    Woodend, Vic

Round 2                              South Australia                        Australian Championships

3. June 6 Sprint Distance                                  Mt Gambier, SA
4. June 7          Long Distance                                    Mt Gambier, SA
5. June 8 Middle Distance                                 Mt Gambier, SA

Round 3                              Queensland                            Queensland Championships

6. Sept 5 Middle Distance                                 Beerburrum, Qld
7. Sept 6          Long Distance                                    Beerburrum, Qld

The four classes in the 2009 National MTBO Series are M21 Elite, W21 Elite, M17-20 Elite and W17-20 Elite.

Mike Dowling

Director, High Performance