2013 Archive

Steep! Tough! Very physical! A description of JWOC 2013 day 1 – The Long Distance. The weather was fine, a little cool to start with but warmed up for the later starters. The Aussie contingent was there early, ready for a day of excitement. Some took part in the JWOC Tour (public events) others had to forego due to clashes with watching their sons/daughters finish. It was about an hour in before we saw anyone in the arena, the men with a spectator run through and map change about 17-20 minutes from the end of their course, the women just finishing up the chute.

There was a roar of encouragement as the first Aussie appeared. Nicola finished first, closely followed in by Mary. First male through was Brodie, then Matt, who finished in the chute with his sister Jacqui. There were cheers as each Aussie finished their race, Lanita, Oscar, Heather, Michele, Andrew, Olle and Ian. JWOC male champion was Piotr Parfianowicz from Poland and the female champion was Lisa Risby from Sweden. Overall results and placings are listed below but just how did our Aussie team feel about their efforts in today’s conditions?

Nicola – “For my first big race I am happy not to have made any major mistakes. I am pleased with my navigation but I felt I was a bit hesitant with some route choices.”

Mary – “I am very happy. I had fun and really enjoyed the forest. My run was clean and I ran hard to do. I may have been able to run faster but I am happy I had no mistakes!”

Brodie – “I lost 2-2 1/2 minutes in the circle, close to controls but other than that I only lost time due to strength and route choice errors. Preparing for next year, my focus will be on running strength in soft terrain and making quick, direct, route choice decisions.”

Matt – “Happy enough with my result. I had no big mistakes, so happy!”

Jacqui – “Already moving on, looking forward to tomorrow!”

Lanita – “Very happy, clear run, hills a bit tough. Happy with my first result!”

Oscar – “Fairly clean run but took poor route choices in some places. I took longer route choices to avoid some hills and over some hills when I should have gone around! I didn’t have the strength or power up hills.”

Heather – “I thought it was really tough. So steep! I was happy with my navigation and I thought it was pretty exciting but I was really exhausted at the end. Different route choices may have eliminated some climb for me.”

Michele – “I am going to take my run in my stride and try harder tomorrow.”

Andrew – “Hills were tough but I navigated OK. I am happy.”

Olle – Very few mistakes just physically not as well as I was hoping. Didn’t think hills would be so big.”

Ian – “I am not too happy and feel disappointed. I thought I was more prepared but struggled. Hope to bounce back for tomorrow’s middle.”

Results JWOC 2013 Long Distance – Men

1. Parfianowicz Piotr Poland 69.21

2. Schneider Florian Switzerland 70.37

3. Kozyrev Andrey Russia 71.44

52. Poland Oliver Australia 80.34

69. McNulty Oscar Australia 83.53

85. Lawford Ian Australia 86.24

91. Nankervis Brodie Australia 87.46

102. Doyle Matthew Australia 89.21

135. Barnett Andrew Australia 97.01

JWOC 2013 Long Distance – Female

1. Risby Lisa Sweden 60.42

2. Hagström Sara Sweden 61.29

3. Savkina Ekaterina Russia 61.36

73. Steer Lanita Australia 79.13

84. Fleming Mary Australia 81.46

90. Muir Heather Australia 83.32

116. Blatchford Nicola Australia 91.04

125. Doyle Jacqui Australia 95.33

127. Dawson Michele Australia 97.14

Orienteering ACT is providing a scholarship for an enthusiastic orienteer from Australia or Overseas to volunteer as a Club Trainer for the southern hemisphere summer.

This is a great opportunity for you to holiday in Australia’s bush capital city – with some of the world’s best granite terrain at its doorstep and plenty of fast forested spur/gully maps within the city. You will meet orienteering families, experience some upside down orienteering and gain experience teaching orienteering. In return we will provide rent, free entries to events and some spending money. If you have a visa, you can obtain further paid work as a coach in schools, mapping local areas, or other work.

 How does it work?

Optional working visa: If aged 18-30 and you live in most of Europe or many other countries this visa will allow you to work anywhere in Australia for a limited time. It costs $367. It is not necessary for the core scholarship.

Dates: Ideally from before October 14^th 2013 to after April 25^th,2014 although we are flexible and applications for a shorter length of time would be favourably considered.

If you arrive by September 21^st we will pay for your entries in the 7 day Australian Championships Carnival based in Canberra. We will also pay entries to Christmas 5 Days and Easter 3 days (both near Sydney)

From December 15^th to January 20^th – no obligations – you’re free to travel anywhere, visit beaches etc

Obligations – we ask you to:  

• Assist with organising 4 or more events
• Provide free training sessions twice a week for 2 hrs to club members.

Further paid opportunities (with optional work visa):

• Join in with our ‘Schools’ program and teach orienteering to school children
• Make some maps for us
• Non-orienteering work.

You will pay the following:

Airfare and other travel costs. Optional visa fee

Travel and health insurance

A contribution towards food and electricity

OACT pays:

A $1,000 scholarship (for 6 months, pro-rata if less)

Free membership of OACT for 12 months

All entry fees to all OACT events for 6 months

All entry fees to major national events (e.g. Easter and Christmas Carnivals, National Orienteering League competitions)

You will need:

A police check (we will assist with this)

To attend a couple of one day workshops here (and perhaps give a lesson)

To have good English, communicate well and be a good orienteer

No formal qualifications in coaching are required

Accommodation:

You will be billeted with various club families if you wish.

You would pay the family a negotiable weekly amount for food and electricity

To apply please email

bluesparksact@gmail.com or  matthewcrane1@googlemail.com

with a brief CV and a statement as to why you would be good for this position before July 15th.

Welcome to JWOC 2013! It is 10.30pm in Hradec Kralove and everyone is settling down for a good night’s sleep before the long distance event tomorrow. Earlier today the team got together and met with the huge Aussie contingent of supporters.

After some official photographs, it was off to the opening ceremony, this year a closed event just for teams and shortened due to the long distance being held on day one. The team was excited and looking forward to tomorrow’s event.

Start times take place between 9am and 4pm and athletes could choose a preferred start block. Start block 1, with buses leaving for the event at 6.30am, include Nicola, Mary, Brodie and Matt. Starting midmorning will be start block 2 consisting of Andrew, Lanita, Jacqui and Oscar. During the afternoon will see Ian, Olle, Heather and Michele start in Block 4.

All competitors in the Men’s Long Distance will be wearing GPS tracking so that supporters can track their performance. In Australia, simply log on to and watch our Aussie’s compete.

Live TV http://www.ceskatelevize.cz/ivysilani then go to ‘Zive’ which means ‘Alive’

JWOC Website http://www.jwoc2013.cz/live follow links to LIVE RESULT and GPS.

JWOC Facebook http://www.facebook.com/Jwoc2013jwocTour

Also see the World of O website coverage

Live results will be available from 5.30pm Monday night, so cheer hard from home. Good Luck Aussies!!

From January 4- 11^th there will be a series of 6 races in 8 days in the north island of New Zealand.

These will include the Aus v NZ Challenge on the following days:

Tuesday Jan 7th – ANZ Challenge Middle distance  – Hedley Road, Auckland.

Thursday Jan 9th – ANZ Challenge Classic distance – Maramarua Forest, South of Auckland.
Friday Jan 10th – ANZ Challenge Sprint – Rotorua.

Challenge classes are determined by what categories Australia can field from:

M20, M21,  M40, M50,  M60, M70

W20, W21, W40, W50, W60, W70

The North Island is a mecca for single track riders, so there are lots of places to ride and things to see if you wish to extend your stay.

Craig Steffens (Qld) has been appointed as the manager of the Australian teamand also is willing to organise a travel group for interested riders, as he did successfully for the 2012 challenge.   This will include all accommodation, 12 seater bus transport and bike trailers.

Because January is peak season for travel in New Zealand it is imperative that Craig make bookings as soon as possible.

People can complete this survey   to express their interest to Craig and then he will provide further information.

Riders who wish to travel separately can also nominate for the team directly to Craig, who is also the MTBO chair of selectors.

Nominating for Australian challenge team but not wishing to join group travel.

Name:                                          Email:

Ph number:                                   Date of Birth:

Age class you wish to ride in NZ:

Reminder: Entries for NSW Champs and Australian Champs (Gympie, Qld) in July are now due.

The very popular holiday event, the Xmas 5 Days, will be held this year based in Orange NSW (about 250km west of Sydney).  All days will be within 30 minutes of Orange and will include a range of terrains including urban/sprint, granite, goldmining and spur/gully.

The 2013 Christmas 5 Days program is as detailed below:

Day 1 (Friday 27 December – 4.00pm start)  CSU Campus  (N edge of Orange)  urban sprint
Day 2 (Saturday 28 December – 7.30am start)  Kahlis Rocks (33km E of Orange)  granite
Day 3 (Sunday 29 December – 7.30am start)  Rocky Falls (24km N of Orange)  spur/gully with sandstone outcrops
Day 4 (Monday 30 December – 7.30am start)  Ophir Diggings (27km NE of Orange)  spur/gully with gold mining
Day 5 (Tuesday 31 December – 7.30am start)  Macquarie Woods (26km E of Orange)  spur/gully with granite

Central Administration    Jean/Basil Baldwin baldwins@fourjayfarms.com.au assisted by Ron Pallas ronpallas@hotmail.com

Further details including classes/courses and entry procedure will be on Eventor soon.

Two of Australia’s team members for WOC in Finland were competing in the Tallinn O week events held in Estonia this week.

Felicity Brown who will be competing in the Sprint at WOC won the Tallinn City Race yesterday against an international field. The event was held in Tallinn Old Town and was a middle distance race with a scale of 1:4000. Felicity won the 6.9km race in a time of 34.46, second was Sarka Svobona (CZE) who placed 2nd in the Sprint at JWOC 2007 in Dubbo, third was Ruth Holmes from Great Britain.

Bryan Keely made the trip to Estonia after competing at Jukola last weekend and after winning a local event on Tuesday in his first experience of orienteering in Estonia came a very close second in the M21A class at the Tallin City Race yesterday.

These races have provided Felicity and Bryan with valuable race experience leading into the World Championships. Bryan is now off to Finland to meet up with some other WOC team members to compete in the Finnish WOC trials on this weekend.

Australia was well represented in the huge Finnish relay event held on the weekend just past.

The women’s Venla relay consisted of over 1200 four person teams while the men’s Jukola was a 7 person relay, with 1600 teams, incorporating night legs as well.

The “Bushranger” men’s Jukola team  included 2 Jwoc team members  (Ian Lawford and Mary Fleming), 4 elites and veteran “captain coach”  Jim Russell.    They were excellently led off by Ian who came back 146^th on his 12.2km leg, and just 10 minutes behind the leader.  Jim’s second leg saw them slip to 363 but the younger guns pulled the team back up to 229^th at the finish.   This was a great result, especially as they had 3 women in their team.  Mary Fleming was fresh off a plane and having her first sortie in European terrain, whilst both Vanessa Round and Hanny Allston did their second runs after completing 8 / 9 kms in the Venla relay less than 24 hours before!   The “run” of the team was undoubtably Bryan Keely, who placed 106th overall on the 7^th leg after waiting to anchor the team home.

Olle Poland and Tom Quayle both raced for Swedish club OK Nolaskogsarna.   Olle ran first and came in 302^nd, while Tom pulled his team up to 213 on leg 2 and their team finished 132^nd overall.    Vanessa Round, on the comeback trail after a broken fibula in January, had the excitement of being  first leg runner for OK Nolaskogsarna in the Venla relay and came back 85^th, but only 7 minutes behind  the leader.  Anna Quayle ran 2^nd leg and moved the team up to 59th and they finished 76^th at the end.    Hanny ran 4th leg for her Savedalens team which finished in 26^th position.

There may well have been other Aussie runners but it’s a bit hard to scroll 16,000 participants!!

It’s great fun to watch the tracking on the Jukola website of the leading teams.   Especially so of the last runners in the Venla relay, with a different route choice to the second last control being decisive.    http://www.jukola.com/2013/en/

As some of our JWOC team prepares to leave Australia for their upcoming experience in Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic, some of the team are already acclimatising to European conditions. Ian and Mary have joined up with Olle to compete at Jukola, Finland (the world largest orienteering relay). The Jukola relay will see 1600 teams competing, each with 7 people running in their team. Mary and Ian will both be running as a part of the Bushrangers team, with Ian running the first leg for his team. Olle too will run first, teaming up with his Swedish team Nolaskogsarna.  Competition is due to start about 6am tomorrow (Sunday the 16th). If you’re interested in keeping an eye on live results check out this site http://www.jukola.com/2013/en/

Following Jukola, the Aussies, Ian, Mary and Olle will meet up with Heather and travel to Czech Republic to begin pre-pre JWOC training. The remainder of the team will leave Australia later this week, meeting in Prague and then Hradec Kralove for a training camp before competition starts on the 1st July. A large contingent of parents and supporters will join the team for their first event, the Long Distance. Watch this space for news reports, photos and team comments on their experiences.

Level 2 orienteering coach and Health and Physical Education teacher Lance Read from Queensland has joined the Orienteering Australia Board as the new Director, High Performance. Lance has been orienteering for over 30 years, since his teens, and in the past been the Queensland School Sport team coach and manager, manager of the Australian School Sport team for a Test against New Zealand, and assisted in the management of other national teams.

Immediate priorities include to provide OA Board support for the excellent work being done by the HP management team of Kay Haarsma and Nick Dent, and to provide leadership in developing an updated High Performance Strategic Plan and Performance Pathways Development Plan.