2019 Archive

These will be held on the weekend of April 4-5 based in Beechworth, Victoria.

The trials are for both the elite and the Junior (U21yrs) World Championships teams. A maximum of 6 men and women in each category are eligible for selection.   Orienteering Australia would especially like to see many junior representatives try for the team.

The two events will compose a sprint event in Beechworth on “Maydays” and a long event on the updated “Devil’s Elbow“ map at nearby Stanley.  Note that both maps are now embargoed for riders nominating for the team.  However digital copies of the old maps for armchair study can be attained by emailing kayhaarsma@hotmail.com.

A training day will be held on Friday 3^rd based in the Beechworth area.  This will involve some riding plus theory, but won’t be overly strenuous. Riders should aim to source accommodation in Beechworth as soon as possible, as it is school holidays in Victoria.

Nominations for the trials and whether you are attending the training day will be sought in late February.       The World Championships are being held in the Czech Republic (17-23 August) but team members will also be required to attend the pre Champs training camp there from August 10^th.   Riders receive some funding support from Orienteering Australia but will need to pay all airfare and uniform costs, and approximately $1,000 towards the 2 weeks of overseas expenses.

For more information contact Kay Haarsma (OA MTBO C0-ordinator) on 0403 455 534.

The annual Aus v NZ Challenge, held during the Australian MTBO Championship carnival at Maryborough, Victoria, saw Australia emerge victorious 18 points to 14.   The challenge was contested over the 8 age classes nominated by the visiting nation in each of the 4 races.   In both races 1 & 2 the teams shared the honours with 4 wins each.   In the 3^rd race Australia won 5 classes to 3, thus giving them an edge, but no guaranteed victory going into the final race.  Thanks to wins in W21, W40, M21, M50 & M70 classes in the race 4 Australian manager Andrew Power was reluctantly handed the challenge trophy by the Kiwis, who had held it for some years. The Championships saw the sprint, middle and mass start events held on the outskirts of Maryborough, while the long distance champs was held in the forest east of Dunolly.  This was the first time that all 4 individual events had been contested at the one carnival and attracted 162 pre-entrants plus some enter on the day.  Among these were 27 Kiwis and 2 from Britain and 1 from Hungary.  Many congratulations to the 3 organising clubs, Bayside Kangaroos, Eureka Orienteers and Yarra Valley and their extra helpers who conducted an excellent carnival.

Race reports, results and Winsplits are available on the Championship website, while photo’s, courtesy of Jason Rogers, are available on the Aus MTBO Facebook page.

After the races 26 orienteers stayed on for a 2 day International Orienteering Federation (IOF) Event Advisor Clinic conducted in the Maryborough community hub.   This was led by Hungarian MTBO expert Sandor Talas who updated the knowledge of participants in the technical aspects of MTBO event organising.