2012 Archive

NZ is throwing a little bit of everything at the Aussie MTB orienteers.  Heavy rain is forecast for Friday’s event at Wanaka, whilst up at “Snow Farm”, at Saturday’s relay site, the forecast is a maximum of 1 degree and 8 centimetres of snow!  True!

The 50 strong contingent of Aussie mtb orienteers spent the rest day in Queenstown.  With so much adventure stuff on offer there were actually few who “rested.”  Some chose to practice their bike descent skills on the local mountain, courtesy of repeated chair lift rides to the top, whilst others sought out various water pursuits.

The toughness of the long event on Wednesday was a rude shock for many who hadn’t taken the pre-event course description of “open terrain with significant contour detail” literally. The aptly titled “Linger and Die” map definitely needed mental and physical stamina. Many had almost a 400m climb to the first control!

Comments from Chris Firman: “The long distance race was harder than any course I have ever competed in. The steepness of hills we had to climb this day was extreme and there were many gratuitous climbs. All who finished this day were impressive. On this bareback mountain everyone struggled. If you weren’t going down you were pedaling up and if you weren’t pedaling you were pushing up, which everyone had to do multiple times.  The descents weren’t always your friend being very tricky to ride down fast and with the loose rock and loose soil it proved challenging for a lot of people.  My goal for the course was to have another clean ride like the sprint. One wrong error could potentially send you down the hill in the wrong direction, and it was everyone’s aim to avoid climbing more then you had to. Similar to the sprint day, I was hesitant double checking the vague tracks on the bare mountain and also pacing myself, knowing I had a lot of climb ahead of me.”

Australian individual highlights were as follows:  Alex Randall placed 3^rd in open men despite a puncture with 4 controls to go, while teammates Oscar Phillips and Ricky Thackray were 5^th and 6^th in the 20 person field.  David Simpfendorfer retired with a broken chain, as did Ian Dalton with tyre issues.

In open women, on course 2, the ultra-fit Melanie Simpson (122 mins) had a well deserved victory over Maquita Gelderman.  Mary Fein also rode extremely well to place a close 3^rd and secure the class victory for the Aussies.  Jenn Graham-Taylor, on the comeback trail after motherhood, persevered well to place 6^th out of 14.  The fastest time of the day on course 2 went to M20 Chris Firman with 109 mins, while fellow Queenslander Karl Withers was 2^nd (129mins) in M20, with Victorian youngster Tim Jackson 3^rd.  M40 winner (also C2) Damian Welbourne actually enjoyed the tough conditions to win in 110 mins, just a minute ahead of Greg Barbour, a dual foot and mtbo world champs Kiwi representative.  Remarkably Damian rode the entire event with his front forked locked out, after forgetting to re-engage it after a bitumen climb to the first control.

Course 3 saw two victories for the reliable duo of Carolyn Jackson (W40) – 104 mins, and Marcus Roberts (M50) – 99 mins.  While Carolyn had a 13 minute win Marcus had less than a minute up his sleeve over Kiwi Phil White.   On course 4 Victorian Heather Leslie was Australia’s only placegetter, with her 3^rd in W50. Peta Whitford was unable to start and reserve Carolyn Cusworth bravely stepped up into the W50 team and was thrilled to finish.  In the ultra-competitive M60class, David Firman (Qld) and Leigh Privett (Vic) rode well in a strong field for 4^th and 5^th respectively.  Course 5 saw evergreen Kathy Liley again take the honours in W60.

Some of the riders will go into the 3^rd of the challenge events, the middle distance, aiming to achieve a clean sweep trifecta of wins.  These are New Zealanders Chris Forne (men’s open), Ed Corey-Wright (M16) Bruce Meder (M60) and Aussies Chris Firman (M20), Carolyn Jackson (W40) and Kathy Liley (W60).

NZ maintained its lead today, in the second event of the 2012 MTB-Orienteering Challenge at Alexandra. The long distance courses in steep hills across the river were run in sweltering conditions, with several errors and retirements in the field of 150.

Australia won the Mens 20 and Womens Open again, narrowly lost Womens 40 by 59 seconds, but picked up Mens 50 after the leading kiwi Rob Garden visited a wrong control point. New Zealand retained Mens Open with Chris Forne leading the field by an incredible 20 minutes. Also both veteran womens classes, plus Mens 40 and 60. Australia’s Melanie Simpson was the fastest Open Woman, 4 minutes ahead of top kiwi Marquita Gelderman.

Riders finishing on the banks of the Manuherikia River were too exhausted to comment on Joe Sherriff’s mapping and courses, but as they recovered the extent of his hard work over many months received recognition. And also the work of his partner Jo Wilson, who had installed a 4-metre control flag next to the town clock on the cliffs overlooking the town.

New Zealand now has a lead of 10-6 going into the final event, a middle distance at Wanaka on Friday. Winning times will be up to 50 minutes depending on class.

(Michael Wood, NZ)

Provisional team results based on the best two riders from each country.

Full results willat http://www.obasen.nu/winsplits/online/en/

M-20: AUS 234-50, NZL no team

M-Open: NZL 245-09, AUS 284-50

M40: NZL 223-49, AUS 231-23

M50: AUS 211-46, NZL 255-47

M60: NZL 175-25, AUS 212-51

W-Open: AUS 253-01, NZL 275-08

W40: NZL 249-02, AUS 250-01

W50: NZL 237-07, AUS 250-41

NZ inched ahead of Australia today in the first of the three events of the 2012 MTB-Orienteering Challenge at Roxburgh, by 5 classes to 3. The visitors won the Men’s 20, the Women’s Open and Women’s 40, while the hosts won the rest of the Men’s classes and Women’s 50. Australia met with bad luck in the last when Peta Whitford took a tumble while negotiating a stream crossing, and Helen Edmonds missed a control point, leaving the team with insufficient times for a result. The best two out of three riders per class are counted

Riders were complimentary about the gold-mining terrain over the river from Roxburgh, where locals have created a maze of tracks in an area only 1km long and 500m wide. Planner Conal Boland-Bristow of Christchurch set 5 sprint-distance courses of up to 7km in the tiny area. Only Bruce Meder (M60, NZL) beat the target winning time of 22 minutes, though Chris Forne (M-Open, NZL) came close with 22-29. After the teams had ridden 100 other orienteers between 14 and 70 rode the courses. The challenge continues tomorrow at Alexandra.  (MWood)

Many classes rode the same courses allowing for time comparisions. Kiwi Chris Forne was dominant on course 1 taking 22 minutes in winning men’s open. Queensland junior Chris Firman impressed in taking the 2^nd best time, with 25.53, easily winning M20. Greg Barbour (Aussie resident but NZ team member) won M40 in 27.16. Alex Randall (VIC), Ricky Thackray (WA) and Oscar Phillips (VIC) were next, closely grouped all in the 27 minute range. Maquita Gelderman had a time of 30 minutes in winning the women’s open, but Mary Fein (NSW) and Melanie Simpson (NSW) weren’t far behind and gained Australia an important class win.

The fastest time in course 2 was recorded by M50 winner NZ’s David King (27.04) but Aussie star Carolyn Jackson rode well to be 2^nd overall (and win W40) with a time of 28.34. NSW’s Carolyn Matthews made an outstanding Australian team debut to finish 3^rd in the same class and clinch the class victory.   (KHaarsma)

Team results (provisional)

Full results at http://www.obasen.nu/winsplits/online/en/

M-20: AUS 58-53, NZL no team          M-Open: NZL 53-32, AUS 55-18

M40: NZL 55-34, AUS 59-15               M50: NZL 63-15, AUS 66-27

M60: NZL 44-14, AUS 53-31               W-Open: AUS 61-56, NZL 62-37

W40: AUS 63-27, NZL 66-02               W50: NZL 79-06, AUS no result

The 2011 Xmas 5 Days in NSW finished with head to head racing using a loop format on Brush Creek above Glendale High School, with courses planned by NSW Junior squad member Kasimir Gregory.

With 2 competitors starting at the same time on each course, each competitor had three loops to complete with the third loop being common. The loop format made good use of the Brush Creek map utilising the area to great effect. The loop control on most, and possibly all of the courses, was a feature which some competitors found equally hard to see and sometimes find on all three visits to it.

So after 5 days of racing using 5 different formats the overall results were:

Mens A: Dave Shepherd (ACT) Womens A: Rachel Effeney (Qld)

Mens B: Oliver Crosato (Qld) Womens B: Vilde Kinneberg (Norway)

Mens C: Eoin Rothery (NSW) Womens C: MOrgan McIntyre (Qld)

Mens D: Greg Chatfield (Qld) Womens D: Val Hodson (NSW)

Mens E: Bob Gilbert (NSW) Womens E: Samantha Wallace (NSW)

Mens F: Lachlan McIntyre (Qld) Womens F: Judith Anderson (Great Britain)

Men/Women Novice: Ryan Gray (Qld)

In the “A” class men Dave Shepherd won 4 of the 5 days, with junior Lachlan Dow (also the runner-up) taking the other victory. Third place was taken by the canny veteran Greg Barbour who will be riding for New Zealand next week in the Aus v NZ MTBO Challenge “over the ditch.”   Rachel Effeney, who made her WOC debut in 2011, continued her good form in taking overall honours in the womens “A” with three victories along the way.  Tracy Marsh won one of the three races in which she competed.  Regular W40 placegetter Barbara Hill demonstrated great fitness and strategy to upstage her younger rivals to be runner-up to Rachel overall. This included a clear win in the mass start event on day 4.  Rounding out the top three was fellow veteran Jenny Enderby, who had represented Australia in her juniors years.

Day 5 individual results can be found here, Day 5 splits can be found here, and RouteGadget for the Day 5 courses found here.

Overall results for the 5 Days competition can be found here.

There were many people involved in the organisation of the 2011 Xmas 5 Days, and Nick Dent and his team of junior course planners are to be congratulated. They provided 5 great events which were enjoyed by all who competed. The idea to use 5 different formats made the week even more enjoyable.

Article – Paul Prudhoe, with some additions by Kay Haarsma.