2008 Archive

On Friday 1 August, David Hogg (pictured with wife Sandra) was inducted as an Associate Member of the ActewAGL ACT Sport Hall of Fame.  David was honoured for his contribution to Orienteering in Australia over his nearly 40 years involvement in the sport.

He was a founding member and the inaugural president of the Orienteering Federation of Australia (nowadays Orienteering Australia). He was also a founding member and the inaugural president of the AC.T. Orienteering Association (nowadays Orienteering ACT).

The citation, which will be published in detail in the September edition of The Australian Orienteer, recognised his vision, enthusiasm and energy over four decades.  During this period he held many positions on national and local boards and was also involved in key supporting committees such as mapping, regulations, development and promotion.  He is still active as OACT’s landholder liaison officer, an event official and a competitor.

David’s contribution to Orienteering will receive further recognition at the 2009 Orienteering Australia Annual Awards with the inaugural presentation of the David Hogg Medal for Services to Event Management.

The last few members of the 8 person WOC team are exiting Australia shortly.  Cath Chalmers and Jenn Graham-Taylor have been racing MTBO and adventure races successfully in WA in preparation.  David Simpfendorfer warmed up with a wins in both the sprint and long NSW Champs at Nowra recently.  Four of the team contested the Polish 6 day event in similar terrain recently. Alex Randall and Paul Darvodelsky have a training base in Warsaw and are racing local events.  Adrian Jackson is doing a MTB stage race and will return to Warsaw soon.  Melanie Simpson gained a lot from her Polish races and is working and training in Norway before returning.  Thorlene Egerton is based in England and will be doing a Swiss MTBO event en route to Poland.

The Aussie training camp commences on Aug 17th at Nowa Kaletka. Riding on the right hand side of tracks; investigating the ride / run your bike across country route options (as allowed in Poland) and getting used to the 2.5m contours will be part of training. We move into our cabins at Hotel Anders, in the small village of Stare Jablonki for WOC from August 24 -31st.  The nearest big town is Olsztyn, some 30 km NE.  Entries for WOC are: 28 countries, 122 men, 76 women.  For the inaugural JWOC MTBO there are: 21 countries, 62 men and 40 women.  Finland, Russia and Poland have full teams of 12 in JWOC.

The Australian team is an exciting blend of experience and new talent so watch this space to see how they all get on.  Also look out for the NZ’ers as they have 3 men and 3 women in WOC and 1 junior girl in Jwoc.

The High Performance Management Group of Orienteering Australia announces the 2009  National League program. The 2009 National League will consist of 17 races conducted over four rounds. The League kicks off in 2009 in South Australia in mid March followed by the Easter carnival in Tasmania in April. In May, the League heads to ACT and will finish the year with the Australian Championships carnival in Victoria. Full details below.

Mike Dowling
Director, High Performance

Adrian Jackson has continued his stunning form to win both World Ranking events that were part of the Polish 6 Days MTBO carnival held at Nowa Kaletka in Poland. AJ had a comfortable victory in the Middle distance event on Tuesday, leading from start to finish, but it was much later in the Ultra Long event on Wednesday before he hit the lead. All of the top ranked Russians were there as well as top ranked riders from Estonia, Czech Republic and Denmark.

Alex Randall also rode very well, finishing in 5th place in the Middle and 8th in the Ultra Long.

Paul Darvodelsky came in 24th and 20th in his two rides, and Melanie Simpson was 17th and 27th. Marquita Gelderman from NZ had some good rides too coming 13th in the Middle and 2nd in the Ultra Long.

Things are looking very promising for some top results in the World Championships which are to be held in Poland from 25 to 29 of August.

A brilliant first leg by Jo Allison (6th place, just 80 seconds down) set up the team for a great result, and put them in the hunt for medals with the leading nations. Grace Elson then kept up the pace and put the team into 7th after 2 legs.  The podium was looking a little out of reach, with the six powerful women’s nations SUI, SWE, RUS, CZE, FIN and NOR ahead.Minna Kauppi (FIN) ran brilliantly on the last leg to take the lead and defend Finland gold from 2007.  This was also Kauppi’s 2nd gold, and third medal of the week. After yesterday’s brilliant 14th in the long distance final, Kathryn Ewels finished off a great week to come in 8th place.

In a dramatic last loop on the men’s relay, GBR took out gold in a sprint ahead of RUS.  Thierry Gueorgiou appeared to injure himself while in the lead with only one kilometer to go.  The TracTrac view saw him make a basic mistake on the way to control 23, but after he recovered he seemed to stop for around a minute in the control circle.  First RUS, then GBR went by while 5 time World Middle Distance Champion Gueorgiou limped home.  Although Jamie Stevenson (GBR) had run yesterday, he was still able to outsprint Valentin Novikov in the run home.  This was GBR’s first WOC gold in the men’s relay.

I can report that Thierry Gueorgiou FRA suffered an allergic reaction after being bitten by an insect, that is why he had to stop. He should be OK again in a relatively short time.

Australia finished 15th after a great last leg from Julian Dent (11th fastest on the leg).  Dent ran most of the last leg on his own, and was able to pull in a number of nations on the last loop. Earlier, David Shepherd finished 18th on the first leg, and Simon Uppill 20th on the second leg.

Final Results – women

Final Results – men

Maps

The long distance finals at Skripov saw another Australian women achieve her best individual WOC result.  Kathryn Ewels was 14^th, just  over 8 minutes behind Dana Brozkova who gave the host country, the Czech Republic, a Gold medal on home soil.  Jo Allison continued to perform well in 25^th place 13 minutes adrift, whilst Austalia’s third starter Vanessa Round in her first WOC long distance event, was 39^th.   Kathryn’s run began a little slowly, being in 25^th place at the early radio control, but consistent running thereafter saw her move up through the field, being 17^th at the second radio control about two thirds of the way through the course.

Norway and Sweden took the Silver (Marianne Anderson ) and Bronze placings (Annika Billstam).  Last year’s joint winner Minna Kauppi was 7^th, whilst Heli Jukkola withdrew due to injury.

In the men, Daniel Hubmann from Switzerland took the gold, ahead of Anders Norberg (Norway) who improved from last years 3^rd place, Frenchman  Francois Goron was third.  Matthias Merz, the winner in the Ukraine in 2007 was 5^th.  Australia had no runners in the men’s final.

Both the men’s and women’s courses had a long leg (3 km plus) in the middle of the course. The majority of the latter runners took the northern route via the road (in part at least), however equally fast times were achieved on the southern route requiring possibly more detailed navigation but less steep climb.  Of the top 6 men, three took variations on the northern route, Gonon took the shortest most direct route and 2 took the southern route.  On the women’s course three in the top six went north and three south.

LongFinalMens Map – Top6
LongFinalWomens Map – Top6

Women

1. Dana Borzkova (CZE)       84:26
2. Marianne Andersen (NOR) 85:09 (0:43)
3. Annika Billstam (SWE)     85:28 (1:02)
14. Kathryn Ewels (AUS)     92:54 (8:28)
25: Jo Allison (AUS)             98:23 (13:57)
39. Vanessa Round (AUS)    109:11 (24:45)

Men

1. Daniel Hubmann (SUI)      106:08
2. Anders Norberg (NOR)     107:23 (1:15)
3. Francois Gonon (FRA)      108:05 (1:57)

Competitors return to Skripov on Sunday morning for the relay event.

See the WOC website for full results, splits, photos and other routes.

Grace Elson and Jo Allison led the way for Australia in this afternoon´s Middle Distance final at the World Orienteering Championships. Both lost time early on in an area of complex rock, as did many others, but ran a good final two-thirds of the course, and were separated by only a single second at the end. Elson finished 16th and Allison 17th. For both, it was the best individual result of their careers at this level. Minna Kauppi recovered from a moderate qualifying run to storm home in the final, whilst Vroni Konig-Salmi achieved her first middle distance medal at the age of 39.

Vanessa Round, who has qualified for two finals at her first World Championships, had a steady run in the first of them, finishing in 33rd position. Julian Dent was also steady without being spectacular and finished in 32nd, behind Thierry Gueorgiou who won his fifth gold medal in six years.

Competition will continue on Saturday with the Long Distance final, for which Allison, Round and Kathryn Ewels have all qualified.

Results

Men

1. Thierry Gueorgiou (FRA) – 33.49
2. Michal Smola (CZE) – 34.23
3. Valentin Novikov (RUS) – 34.27
32. Julian Dent (AUS) – 40.08

Women

1. Minna Kauppi (FIN) – 32.35
2. Vroni Konig-Salmi (SUI) – 34.37
3. Radka Brozkova (CZE) – 34.51
16. Grace Elson (AUS) – 39.49
17. Jo Allison (AUS) – 39.50
33. Vanessa Round (AUS) – 43.35

Full results and splits are available from the WOC website.

All three Australian women qualified for tonight’s final of the Middle Distance at the World Orienteering Championships, while Julian Dent also qualified in the men’s race.

The standout performer today was Jo Allison, who finished 7th in her heat only 2:16 off the lead. Grace Elson also finished (equal) 7th with a deficit of 3:57, while Vanessa Round had a close shave coming in 14th, 4:16 down. The result caps off a strong week from the women’s team, with 100% qualification from the three individual races — the sort of consistency that raises the prospect of another strong placing in the relay.

In the men’s race, Julian Dent bounced back from his food poisoning on Sunday to finish 10th in heat A, only 2:15 from Thierry Gueorgiou. David Shepherd, running in heat B, raced steadily but mistakes at the 5th and third last control saw him slip away from qualification, 6:05 off the pace. Simon Uppill started well, but lost time in the second half of the course and finished in 23rd, 5:15 down.

For the first time in many years, the qualification and final of the Middle Distance are on the same day, so stay tuned to the WOC online coverage from 11:00pm AEST for all the details.

Results Summary:

Men Heat A:
1. Thierry Gueorgiou, FRA, 25:12
10. Julian Dent, AUS, 27:27

Men Heat B:
1.  Baptiste Rollier, SUI, 27:57
18. David Shepherd, AUS, 34:02

Men Heat C:
1. Mikhail Mamleev, ITA, 25:43
23. Simon Uppill, AUS, 30:56

Women Heat A
1. Lina Persson, SWE, 25:16
14. Vanessa Round, AUS, 29:37

Women Heat B
1. Inga Dambe, LAT, 26:44
=. Helena Jansson, SWE, 26:44
7. Jo Allison, AUS, 29:00

Women Heat C
1. Anne Magrethe Hausken, NOR, 26:12
7. Grace Elson, AUS, 30:09

Womens results
Mens Results

English-speaking readers of WOC News number 8 would have been amused by some of the translating, but were probably stumped by the question posed to WOC technical director David Aleš when he was asked if the trial run of systems at the Czech Sprint Championships in June had achieved “metrical prosody”.

In contrast to the translators of the WOC News, the Australian women had no problems translating the demands of the qualification race into starts in the final. All three qualified comfortably, with Jo Allison in particular having an excellent run in the hotly contested heat A, less than three minutes behind Signe Soes (Denmark). Although the spread of qualifying times in heats B and C was greater, both Kathryn Ewels and Vanessa Round had solid runs, with Ewels 7th (+3:24) in heat B, and Round 11th (+7:26) in heat C, where Finland’s 2007 co-world champion Minna Kauppi had the fastest overall time.

In the men’s races, New Zealand’s Ross Morrison has qualified with 15th place in heat A, but Australia’s Kerrin Rattray was 25th in the same heat.

Selected results

Men qualifying race A

1. Mats Troeng (Sweden) 61:46
2. Anders Nordberg (Norway) 62:39
3. Jamie Stevenson (Great Britain) 63:42
15. Ross Morrison (New Zealand) 70:22
25. Kerrin Rattray (Australia) 81:48

Women qualifying race A

1. Signe Soes (Denmark) 48:09
2. Marianne Anderson (Norway) 48:31
3. Dana Brozkova (Czech Republic) 48:48
9. Jo Allison (Australia) 51:03

Women qualifying race B

1. Annika Billstam (Sweden) 49:26
2. Marianne Riddervold (Norway) 50:22
3. Merja Rantanen (Finland) 50:40
7. Kathryn Ewels (Australia) 52:50

Women qualifying race C

1. Minna Kauppi (Finland) 47:14
2. Eva Jurenikova (Czech Republic) 48:00
3. Anne Margrethe Hausken (Norway) 48:27
11. Vanessa Round (Australia) 54:40

Women’s results
Men’s results

Team Trog

Adrian Jackson has continued his excellent mountain bike racing form back into orienteering by winning the two MTBO world ranking events held in Fontainebleau, France over the weekend. The middle and long distance races were part of a 5 Days event held in the same area that hosted the first World MTBO Championships in 2002. The field of over 50 riders contained many of the current top 10 ranked competitors from Switzerland, France, Austria and Russia.

Fontainebleau results

Just the weekend before Adrian finished third in a 2 person team MTB race in British Columbia, Canada. This 7 day race covered over 500Km of challenging trails and included some of the biggest names in mountain bike racing.