2013 Archive

Rob and Kathryn Preston made it a family double in the Victorian Long Distance Championships, held on Sunday at Chewton.

It was a comfortable win for Kathryn in W21E; she took control of the race over the second half of the course to come out six minutes ahead of Aislinn Prendergast. Jasmine Neve just pipped Laurina Neumann for third place.

The Keely brothers had the best of the early exchanges, with both Leon and Bryan in front at various stages. Rob Preston was still trailing at halfway, but took over the lead when Bryan Keely dropped some time in the hilly 18-19-20 section; any chance of a late comeback was snuffed out by a small miss at the third-last. Bryan was 90 seconds back in second with a similar gap back to Leon in third.

There were easy wins for two JWOC representatives, Lanita Steer and Matt Doyle. Outside the open classes, the best race of the day was in M55A, where Geoff Lawford was three minutes ahead of Chris Norwood and Ted van Geldermalsen in a high-class field.

The Victorian Middle Distance Championships will take place next weekend as the buildup to the national championships week continues.

Results (Eventor) and splits (Winsplits).

The Australian Team took a well earned break on yesterday’s rest day.  Some spent the day fine tuning their equipment, some went sight seeing whilst others just chilled out.  Today is the relay and by all accounts it will be a tough day.  The race is scheduled to start at 11:00am Est time for the Junior Mens and 11:25am for the Senior Mens.

M20:

58 Australia-1

Tom Goddard 1st

Angus Robinson 2nd

Karl Withers 3rd

M21:

9 – Australia-1

Chris Firman 1st

Alex Randall 2nd

Callum Fagg 3rd

21- Australia-2

Ricky Thackray 1st

Carolyn Jackson 2nd

Ian Dalton 3rd

Team Australia-1 will be gps equipped for the race.  The GPS tracking and live results can be found here.  Organisers have said that until 3rd leg riders from all teams are on course the GPS tracking will only provide white background.  Once 3rd leg riders are on course then background map will be displayed.

Two ACT orienteers were today inducted into the ACT Sport Hall of Fame. Bob Mouatt of Red Roos, was inducted for his services to orienteering, and Bronwyn Calver, of Bush Flyers, for services to cricket.

Bob Mouatt

Bob Mouatt is a former President of Orienteering Australia who started orienteering in 1977. He has made major contributions toorienteering at Club, ACT and National level. He has held Board positions for both Orienteering ACT (OACT) and Orienteering Australia.

Bob played an instrumental role in Orienteering ACT’s receiving the ACT Chief Minister’s awards for Excellence in the Sport andRecreation Industry in 1997 and 1998 and of the Sport and Recreation award for Marketing and Promotion in 2001. His contribution tothe sport has also been recognised through his award of the OAM (Medal of the Order of Australia) in the 2010 Australia Day Honours list.

Bob has been a most active member in the running of major events conducted by Orienteering ACT, including the 2000 World Cupraces, the 2000, 2005 and 2010 Australian 3-Days and the 2007 and 2011Oceania Orienteering carnivals. He is the Event Director for the 2013 Australian Championships carnival. He is an IOF Event Advisor and has controlled a number of World Ranking Eventsassociated with major carnivals in the ACT and interstate.

Bronwyn Calver (Australian World Cup winning women’s cricketer)

Bronwyn was an outstanding allrounder who represented Australia, ACT and NSW.  She was an extremely accurate and skilful medium pace bowler and an attacking middle order bat.

Bronwyn represented the ACT from 1983 until 1995 at national championship level (1518 runs @ 28.11, 100 wickets @ 19.39) and was selected to represent Australia in 1991. From 1991 to 1998, Bronwyn played three Test matches against England and 34 One Day Internationals which included two World Cups (1993 and 1997).

In ODIs, Bronwyn was not only a wicket taker (29 @ 22.41, best bowling 4/4) but also had a great economy rate of 2.3 runs per over.  Her batting with an average of 53.4 at a strike rate of 75.2 showed she could score runs (534, HS 81no) while placing a high price on her wicket.

Bronwyn played for for NSW from 1996-2004, with outstanding results, scoring 509 runs @ 18.85 (2 x 50s, HS 61no) and taking 95 wickets @ 22.96 (best bowling 3/18).  Over eight seasons, she played 80 matches and won seven WNCL titles.

Bronwyn was enticed out of retirement in 2006 to help the fledgling ACT team prepare for its entry into the WNCL in 2009-10.  In her last match, against South Australia, she returned the remarkable figures of 10 overs, 9 maidens, 7 wickets for 2 runs with the two runs being wides!  Incredible!!

Wednesday’s Middle Distance race took place at Moedaku Sports centre, approximately 15km east of Rakvere.  The area contained a mix of both ATV tracks and ski tracks as well as a balance of forest and farmland. The area south of the main road also presented the athletes with short sharp climbs and some technical descents.  Our team showed consistency again in what was another tough course to deal with.

Carolyn Jackson, only minutes from the start, during warmup was knocked off her bike by another athlete and required medical attention.  Carolyn was able to re-gather herself and put down a clean ride.  Callum, who was our last starter of the day, unfortunately took another tumble and as a result damaged his chain.  This eventually gave way after the spectator control but the chain was repaired in quick time and he went on to post some of Australia’s quickest splits.  Thursday is a rest day for the athletes before the relay on Friday and the Long wrapping up the championships on Saturday.

Athletes Comments:

Ricky: Overall I was happy with my ride today.  I had very marginal mistakes and whilst it was hard to plan on the go, I managed to pick good routes out of the control.

Chris: I flowed through the controls well at the start of the race but later on in the physical part I was trying to make it more complex than it was.  Physically, I was in the red zone today.

Alex: I was happy with my route choices, quick plans and the execution of my plans.  However my route choices were based on tracks not contours so I was faced with unnecessary climb.

Results

M20

1st Cedric Beill  Fra  40:50

15th Tom Goddard  Aus 45:04

34th Karl Withers   Aus 50:11

46th  Angus Robinson Aus  54:48

Mens

1st Tonis Erm  Est  47:41

43rd Alex Randall  Aus 54:40

57th Ricky Thackray Aus 57:16

58th Chris Firman  Aus  57:30

Womens

1st Marika Hara Fin  39:31

43rd Carolyn Jackson Aus 52:27

Today saw the opening of the 2013 MTBOWOC campaign by Callum Fagg of Australia.  Callum started the Sprint race first, for both the Australian team and also the WOC, and was presented with a challenging course both physically and mentally.  The semi urban map had small but technical network of tracks in between sections of built areas.  This proved very tough for our athletes as the offroad terrain didn’t allow for map reading as much as our athletes would have liked.

All the courses experienced a route choice near an out of bounds area which was clearly marked on map but many chose to ride through it, unintentionally or not.  This lead to quite a few disqualifications across all classes and really highlighted how intense competition can cause athletes not to interpret the map fully when under pressure.  Unfortunately for Australia one of our athletes got sucked into an illegal route choice which ultimately lead to a DQ.

Comments from Australian riders:

Tom:  A solid ride with few mistakes which cost me a bit over a minute.  Looking forward to tomorrow.

Angus:  I chose a safe route to the first control which set me up for the rest of my race.  I am happy with my first World Champs race!

Carolyn:  I navigated well but ot a bit confused int he detail so i missed a control.  But i have moved on and there is another race tomorrow.

Results:

M20

1st Cedric Beill  France  17:38

15th Tom Goddard  Aus  20:57

24th Karl Withers  Aus  21:54

26th Angus Robinson Aus 22:23

M21

1st Tonis Erm  Est  19:24

47th Chris Firman Aus 25:26

49th Alex Randall  Aus 25:42

55th Ricky Thackray Aus  28:13

DQ  Callum Fagg  Aus

W21

1st Cecilia Thomasson  Swe  20:32

MP  Carolyn Jackson  Aus

Tomorrow’s race heads out to Moedaka Sports Centre for the Middle Distance Championships.  Racing commences at 11:07 Est time.

M21

Alex Randall  11:31

Chris Firman 11:53

Ricky Thackray 12:37

Callum Fagg 13:27

W21

Carolyn Jackson 12:34

M20

Angus Robinson  11:29

Karl Withers  12:25

Tom Goddard  12:39

Results and live tracking can be found here

Today saw the Opening Ceremony of the 2013 MTBO WOC and JWOC in the town of Rakvere, Estonia.  The weather turned on a charm and allowed 261 competitors form 26 countries to march into the town centre and witness the opening ceremony. Everyone enjoyed seeing the local statue being transformed from a local boy pushing a bike to suddenly being a mountain bike orienteer.

The Australian team earlier today had a model event to prepare themselves for the sprint race being held on Tuesday the 27th.  The athletes spent the time riding as many of the different tracks to get a feel for the Estonian terrain and mapping style.  In Europe we are very lucky to get the opportunity to race semi urban sprints but it is one that doesn’t allow us to practice to often.

The sprint race in Tapa will commence 11.00am Estonian Time.  The Australian start times are as follows:

Junior Men

Karl Withers 11.17

Angus Robinson 12.09

Tom Goddard 12.31

Senior Men

Callum Fagg  11.03

Ricky Thackray  11.31

Alex Randall  12.19

Chris Firman 13.01

Senior Women

Carolyn Jackson 11.36

For live tracking and results follow the link and don’t forget to check us out on Facebook

The Australian MTBO team has settled into its accommodation at the preWOC training camp. The team went out yesterday for 2 training sessions.  The first, in the morning, was a sprint map on an area bordering the WOC long race.  Some of the athlete’s comments were that the small paths were sometimes very difficult to pick up at speed from main tracks.  And that the difficult marked tracks were clearly that!

The afternoon session involved riding on another nearby map to the long race.  This map contained a lot more marshes and lakes with some tracks being marked above the marshes and others being marked under the marsh.  Callum found out the hard way that the tracks marked under the blue could cause your wheel to sink past axle depth into the bog, not the best riding condition!

The next day and a half will involve three more map session before the team heads to Rakvere for WOC week.

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The Australian MTBO team have arrived in Tallinn in preparation for next week’s World and Junior World Mountain Bike Orienteering Championships.

The team consists of Ian Dalton (Team Coach), Alex Randall, Carolyn Jackson, Ricky Thackray, Karl Withers, Tom Goddard, Chris Firman, Angus Robinson, Callum Fagg, Rob Goddard (Team Manager) Jen Goddard (Team Manager)

The team will be heading into 4 days of training camp this Wednesday in preparation for racing.  The World Championships will commence on the 26th of August in Rakvere.  The program of events are:

26/8 Opening Ceremony

27/8 Sprint

28/8 Middle Distance

29/8 Rest day

30/8 Relay

31/8 Long distance / Closing Ceremony.

Results can be found here

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In both the Men 21A and Women 21A classes first and second were separated by seconds. In fact in Men 21A Steve Fletcher held off Henry McNulty by 1 second to take the win in a time of 16:30 with Tim Effeney from QLD in third. Rachel West was 12 seconds ahead of Markéta Novotná with Virpi Komulainen taking third.

RESULTS | SPLITS | ROUTEGADGET |

From Wayne Eliot.

Two training camps for junior and senior elite orienteers are being planned for January 2014.

Tasmania Jan 2nd-Jan 7th

This training camp will be based in St Helens using maps on terrain similar to the World Cup events to be held in Tasmania in January 2015 with a particular focus on technical skills. All orienteers who are interested in competing in the World Cup events are encouraged to attend this camp. Accommodation will be organised and some funding will be available to help cover the cost of the camp.

Canberra Jan 23rd-Jan 27th

This training camp will based at the AIS in Canberra where full board will be available for all participants. The focus of the camp will be Sprint Orienteering with exercises specifically aimed at developing Sprint orienteering skills. We will have full use of the AIS facilities during the camp.

It is planned to organise a series of Sprint events in Canberra  (Thurs 23rd-Mon 27th Jan)which will be open to all orienteers as well as the elites. These events will be organised and set by elites and will help fund the camp. Dave Meyer has offered to be the co-ordinator for these public events.

More details for both these training camps will be made available in early September.

Pre Australian Championships Elite Training Camp

This training is being co-ordinated by Ollie Poland

29th Aug- 1st Sept

Cost – $3 per training session- pay depending on how many sessions you attend. It is open to all orienteers but the exercises will be set at M/W21E level.

Accommodation needs to be organised independently and transport will be done by car pooling.

RSVP by 23rd August with days that you are attending to

olle.poland@hotmail.com   “Aus Champs Training”

More info visit facebook at

https://www.facebook.com/AusOChampsTraining