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Australian Long Distance- performance analysis
On a lovely sunny day the Australian Long Distance Championships were held at Chapel Flat near Creswick. A gold mining, gully spur terrain not dissimilar to the Australian Middle last weekend. Courses were set by the ex-Australian elite and well known mapper Rob Plowright. The elites had a start in the arena and also a map change next to the arena, so there was plenty of action for the spectators in the arena and also those watching the live feed provided by Living It Live. For only the second time in Australia we had live GPS tracking on a big screen in the arena and also live on the internet. Over 500 people were watching the live feed at some stage of the event.
M21E
Ralph Street the Great Britain orienteer who is on a coaching scholarship in Victoria was a clear winner of the M21E class. This completed a successful week for Ralph as he won the Australian Sprint Championships also and was second in the Australian Middle Distance Championships. Ralph won by 4:42 with Peter Bray in 2nd place and Leon Keely who was the best Australian in 3rd place. Ralph lead from control 5 and was by far the strongest runner towards the end of the course as the other runners slowed especially in the last loop in the gold mining where some errors also slowed them down. Ralph was the fastest on the long leg to control 5 where he stayed close to the red line and also maintained good speed. Leon Keely who was running fast took the left track route and covered an extra 609m and lost 2:20 on this leg. The young Australian junior Henry McNulty who was running in this class was in 5th place at control 22 but he lost time (5 minutes) over the remainder of the course to finish in 7th place.
W21E
This class was won by Jo Allison in a time of 87:53 and she was an amazing 9:16 in front of second Krystal Neumann with Anna Sheldon in 3rd. Jo took the lead at control 4 and steadily increased her lead until the finish. Anna Sheldon had a strong start and was in the lead until leg 4. On the long leg 5 Jo was the fastest by 4:23. She took the straighter route choice and used as many small tracks as possible and was running much faster than Krystal Neumann who took a similar route. Anna Sheldon went for the left track route choice and by doing so ran an extra 533m and was over 7 minutes slower on this leg. Aislinn Prendergast also took the left track option and she ran an extra 952m and even though she was running fast she lost 4:27 on this leg.
M17-20E
Tommy Hayes (NZ) who has been in great form all week continued this form with a strong win in this class. Tommy won by 3:12 from Patrick Jaffe with Ed Cory-Wright (NZ) in 3rd place. Patrick had a slow start losing 2 minutes on the first control. Early in the race the lead changed, with Simeon Burrill leading at control 2, 3 and 4 before Tommy Hayes who was the second fastest on the long leg to control 5 took the lead and his speed and consistency enabled him to maintain this until the finish. Patrick after the slow start ran strongly on the long leg to be the fastest after choosing to stay close to the red line. However, he tired a little towards the end to finish second. Tommy Hayes choose the left track option and ran 1111m further than Patrick and running this leg at the very impressive 4.48min/km. Simeon Burrill was running strongly and was in third at control 14 but tired over the rest of the course to finish in 4th place.
W17-20E
In a very strong performance Winnie Oakhill won this class convincingly, by 10 minutes from Lanita Steer and Zoe Dowling a further 1:36 down in 3rd place. Winnie started strongly and after a very strong leg 4 she continued to increase her lead for the rest of the race. Lanita Steer after losing over 6 minutes on leg 2 was almost matching Winnie for running speed until control 11 after which she tired and lost a further 2:30 against Winnie. Anna Dowling who was in the lead at control 3 and in second place until control 10 realised on the way to control 11 that she had taken the wrong map at the map change and she lost 14 minutes on this leg. This was very unfortunate for Anna as she was running almost at the same speed as Winnie until this happened. Anna was the fastest on the long leg to control 2 by 1:45.
GPS tracking routes courtesy of livingitlive
Nick Dent
Jo Allison turned back the clock with a dominating win in the Australian Long Distance Championships at Chapel Flat on Saturday. Her elite career has stretched over two decades but rarely has she been so much on top of a field as she was today. The result was set up on the long leg, where various wide routes failed to pay off and her straight route saw her pull three and a half minutes out on the field on a single leg. From there the result was never in doubt, and she extended her lead to nine minutes by the end. Krystal Neumann and Anna Sheldon completed the minor placings for Queensland, with Neumann’s result also securing the National League title.
Ralph Street has been gradually building up since his arrival in Australia and today’s effort was his best yet. Whilst he did not have the enormous margin of Allison, he was never seriously threatened after hitting the front early in the course. Perhaps more of a surprise was that fellow Briton Peter Bray was his closest challenger, after spending the week mostly on the edges of the top ten. Leon Keely was the best of the locals in third place.
Winnie Oakhill was very impressive in achieving a winning margin even greater than that of Allison in W17-20E. For much of the course Anna Dowling was within striking distance, but the Tasmanian’s chances were ended when she picked up the wrong map at the map change, having to return and losing 15 minutes (she eventually finished ninth). Lanita Steer, who had lost time on a long leg early, was the next best with Zoe Dowling in third. In M17-20E, the business end of the field was towards the end. Tommy Hayes started three minutes behind Patrick Jaffe and eventually caught him late in the course, with Hayes taking the win and Jaffe in second. Ed Cory-Wright was third.
Matt Crane’s fifth was enough to join Neumann as an individual national league winner. In the team competitions, with tomorrow’s Australian Relays to come, it will once again be a fight between the Queensland Cyclones and the Victorian Nuggets in the senior women; first across the line will win with the Cyclones probably slightly favoured for their first senior title. The Canberra Cockatoos stretched their senior men’s lead to 10 points and should take the title, barring disaster, whilst the relays will decide both junior titles with the Victorian Nuggets and Tassie Foresters the protagonists in both.
Rachel Effeney and Ralph Street took out the elite classes at Friday’s Australian Sprint Orienteering Championships, held on a complex and convoluted course at St. Patrick’s College in Ballarat.
Effeney, a finalist in the sprint in the World Championships, was making her first appearance of the week. The last starter of the day, she was in front from early in the course and once she was under way she never seriously looked like losing, eventually scoring by more than 30 seconds. New Zealander Renee Beveridge recovered from a slow start to take second, while Krystal Neumann’s third gave her a useful four-point lead in the National League with one race to come.
Street had been a close second in both of last weekend’s races after arriving from the UK, but went one better on Friday. Starting in the middle of the field, he came in with a big lead. Only once was it seriously challenged, when Matt Ogden was in touch through most of the radio controls, but he was never quite able to match Street and fell 11 seconds short at the finish. Henry McNulty, still a junior, was best of the locals in third place. Neither Matt Crane nor Simon Uppill improved their National League score, leaving the former one point in front.
Olivia Sprod had her best result at this level with a win in the junior women’s event, scoring by six seconds after a fluctuating contest with Tara Melhuish. Tommy Hayes showed his pace by dominating the junior men’s race (in a time which would have got him third in the seniors), with Patrick Jaffe the best of the rest. Despite not improving their own scores, Matt Doyle and Lanita Steer secured the National League titles when others failed to get the results they needed.
Competition continues with the Australian Long Distance Championships on Saturday.
The Australian Bushrangers will take a good lead into the final two races in this test match series for the Aspin-Key trophy. After the Australian Middle Distance event the overall score is Australia 94 and New Zealand 86. In the individual classes the scores were:
M21E- NZ 23, Aus 22
W21E- Aus 24, NZ 21
M20E- NZ 24, Aus 21
W20E- Aus 27, NZ 18
There are two remaining events in this test match series- the Australian Sprint Distance Championships on Friday and Australian Long Distance Championships on Saturday.
Also over the next two events the Icebug National Orienteering League Individual winners will be determined.
In M21E Matt Crane is on 205 points with Simon Uppill on 204. As Ian Lawford is not running in these events, it comes down to a two way battle between Matt and Simon.
In W21E there is some very close points, with Krystal Neumann and Anna Sheldon, both Queendsland Cyclones on 195 points and the two Victorian Nuggets, Natasha Key and Aislinn Prendergast not far behind on 188 and 187 respectively.
In M20E the current leader Matt Doyle is competing in the M21E class over these two events so Patrick Jaffe who is 12 points behind is the likely winner.
In W20E Lanita Steer has a 22 point lead over Anna Dowling, with Winnie Oakhill a further 14 points back. So the placings in these two races will determine the winner in this class.
The teams point score will be finalised after the Australian Relays on Sunday.
Nick Dent
Tasmania have won the 2015 Australian Schools Orienteering Championships after a dramatic finish in the relays on Wednesday, beating the ACT by a single point. It all came down to the senior girls’ relay. Once Tasmania had finished in third place, the ACT, who had gone out in fourth, needed to finish fourth to win outright or fifth to tie. They hung in there better than anyone expected, but Asha Steer of Victoria went through the ACT’s Emily Alder on the second half of the course, and Bo Davie (WA) also caught up to take a 50-metre lead at the spectator control with a few minutes of the course to go. Despite some ups and downs in the closing stages, that was more or less the gap at the end, as Davie (probably wondering why she was being frenetically cheered by every Tasmanian present) held off Alder in a sprint finish.
Tasmania achieved their result with consistency today across the age groups. They did not win any of the relays, and were second in only one of them – the senior boys, where Joseph Dickinson successfully defended, just, a two-minute gap on the fast-closing Victorian Patrick Jaffe, to hold second in a critical result – but got at least fourth in every class. The ACT were the leading state in both junior classes, finishing behind New Zealand in both junior boys and junior girls, and although they got more than expected out of their seniors – led off by Tara Melhuish putting three minutes into the rest of the field on the opening leg – it was not quite enough.
New Zealand also took out the senior girls, Georgia Creagh taking control of the race on the second leg to send Danielle Goodall out with a two-minute break on Winnie Oakhill, although there was a scare at the end when the gap shrank from two minutes to less than 30 seconds on the final loop.
The one race not won by New Zealand was the senior boys. Queensland’s strategy of running Joshua Morrison first and then handing over to their two front-liners, Simeon Burrill and Riley de Jong, paid off in spades as Morrison came back almost on the lead pack. From there, Burrill dominated the second leg to put four minutes into the field and the result was never in serious doubt from there.
Final scores:
Australian Schools Championships: Tasmania 62, ACT 61, Victoria 54, Queensland 54, NSW 41, SA 38, WA 22.
Southern Cross Junior Challenge: NZ 89, Tasmania 63, ACT 63, Victoria 56, Queensland 55, NSW 41, SA 39, WA 22.
Results from the relay are available.
Senior Boys
Tommy Hayes was running much faster up to Control 11 where he was over a minute in the lead. He then had problems with the leg to Control 12 losing 1.35. Simeon Burrill who was the fastest on the leg was then in the lead by 33 seconds with five short legs to go. Even though Tommy was running faster, Simeon had a big enough lead to be the winner by 4 seconds to Tommy Hayes in second. Jarrah Day (3rd) and Ed Cory-Wright (4th) both had similar runs being over 1.30 behind after control 11. They both had very good running speed from this control to the finish with Jarrah being slightly faster to end in 3rd place. Patrick Jaffe had a slow start losing 43 seconds on control 3, a very short leg. From control 11 his speed enabled him to catch up to Ed, however, he lost 15 seconds on the short leg 14 and was unable to match the speed of Jarrah and Ed to finish in 5th place.
Senior Girls
Going into this event Danielle Goodall was the clear favourite after her performances at JWOC for NZ. However, a loss of 3.31 on leg 3 meant that she was too far behind to make up this amount of time in this fast open terrain. Jo Anna Maynard the winner of the sprint on Monday continued her very impressive development. After a small problem on leg 2 Jo Anna was running faster than everyone else and after gaining the lead at control 4 she remained in the lead to the finish to win by 1.02 from Winnie Oakhill. Winnie had some problems from control 7-10 and was not running fast enough to make up this loss of time. Asha Steer who also lost time in the middle of the course was not running as fast as Winnie and finished in 3rd place. Georgia Jones who started slowly had the fastest split on the long leg, but after losing 35 seconds on leg 12 she finished in a promising 4th place.
Junior Boys
In perhaps the performance of the day Aston Key started fast and was in the lead all through the course. His winning margin was 1.50. Aston is showing very impressive running speed and when combined with his very consistent navigation he is rapidly establishing clear ascendency in his age group. The brothers Tristan and Patrick Miller were 2 seconds apart at control 9, but Patrick ran the last 6 controls faster than his brother and finished in 2nd place. Dante Afnan who was only 4 seconds behind the Miller boys at control 9 managed to finish in 3rd place. His speed over the last two controls enabled him to get in front of Tristan Miller who finished in 4th place 17 seconds behind 3rd.
Junior Girls
In a race where the lead changed four times early Zoe Melhuish was the most consistent and the fastest from control 5 to win by 23 seconds to Jenna Tidswell in 2nd place. Jenna had some very fast legs but her inconsistency cost her the chance to repeat her victory in the Sprint yesterday. Briana Steven and Caitlin Young both had very good speed on some legs but not enough consistency. Briana finished in 3rd place with Caitlin who was one second behind the lead at control 3 finished in 4th place 3 seconds behind.
Nick Dent
OA Head Coach
A close finish is in store in the Australian Schools Championships after the second individual day in the fast terrain of Sandon Forest. Tasmania and the ACT are tied on 40 points going into relays day, with Victoria, today’s leading scorers, four points further back.
Surprises were the order of the day, with three of the four race winners somewhat unexpected (at least to tipping competition entrants!). Jo-Anna Maynard showed her form yesterday in the sprint, but the forest was something of an unknown quantity. It was apparent early on that she was on another very good run, and she took a clear lead when she arrived at the finish. There were still several serious challenges to come; Danielle Goodall lost her chance with an early error, but Winnie Oakhill and Asha Steer both ran consistently well. They were, however, unable to match Maynard’s speed, and had to settle for second and third.
Tommy Hayes jumped to a strong early lead and kept the field at arm’s length for much of the race. The long 12th leg proved to be the decisive one, as he took a low route choice which proved to be suboptimal. The minute or so that option cost him opened the door, and it was Simeon Burrill who was able to go through it; he almost blew it with a slight wobble at the last control, but picked himself up just in time and finished four seconds clear of the New Zealander. Jarrah Day was third, on a day when the top five were covered by barely a minute.
It took a while for the junior girls to settle down, with several promising runs coming to grief on controls in the second half of the course, but Zoe Melhuish eventually posted the time to chase. It seemed unlikely to hold up with the formidable New Zealand team, fillers of the top four places yesterday, still with runners to come, but hold up it did. Jenna Tidswell was the last chance to overhaul her, taking the lead at the first radio, but a 90-second miss at #5 put her just behind the Canberran and it was a gap she was never quite able to close. Briana Steven completed the placings for the New Zealanders.
The one age group where the win was no surprise was the junior boys, where Aston Key reigned supreme. That the margin, just under two minutes, was a good deal smaller than those over the weekend owed something to the simpler terrain, but rather more to a high-standard race in which none of the top six made any significant errors. The Miller brothers from the ACT filled two of the top four, with Patrick second and Tristan fourth, separated by Dante Afnan.
Provisional scores: Tasmania, ACT 40; Victoria 36; Queensland 32; SA 30, NSW 29; WA 17.
Tasmania are the narrow leaders after the first day of the Australian Schools Orienteering Championships, the inaugural Schools sprint run at Federation University in Ballarat. They lead by one point from the ACT, with six of the seven states within six points of each other after a well-contested first day.
The most convincing win of the day came from Aston Key in the junior boys. He has been in imposing form in the forest, with a top-ten placing at the Swedish 5-Days and a third in M20 in the ultra-long in August among his highlights, and he showed today that he is as far ahead of the field in the sprint. The rest of the field was more than a minute back, with Dante Afnan (SA) edging out Duncan Currie (NSW) for second by a single second.
Jo-Anna Maynard was almost as impressive in the senior girls, giving the largest WA team in memory plenty to cheer about. Up against a strong field including three with JWOC experience, she made a very fast start and caught Winnie Oakhill by mid-course, sweeping to victory by nearly half a minute. Danielle Goodall was second, with Oakhill finishing off well enough to complete the placings.
New Zealand swept the board in the junior girls, with last starter Jenna Tidswell leading a quadrella which also included Carolyne Nel, Marisol Hunter and Briana Steven. Meredith Norman was the best of the Australians on a good day for South Australia. New Zealand also took out the senior boys in the closest result of the day, with Patrick Jaffe falling just short of edging out Tommy Hayes. Ed Cory-Wright, after an uncertain start, recovered to third place.
Provisional points after day 1:
State: Tasmania 20, ACT 19, Queensland 17, SA 16, Victoria 15, NSW 14, WA 11.
Southern Cross Junior Challenge: NZ 31, Tasmania 20, ACT 20, Queensland 17, SA 16, Victoria 15, NSW 14, WA 11.
Results from the event are available.
The Icebug National Orienteering League is set for a grandstand finish after the two weekend rounds. With two individual rounds remaining plus the Australian Relays, all titles potentially remain up for grabs.
The senior women are providing the closest competition, both team and individual. The Victorian Nuggets had a bad day on Saturday, collecting only two points to drop behind the Queensland Cyclones, but bounced back to regain the lead by two points after Sunday. Eight points cover the top four, with Krystal Neumann and Anna Sheldon tied at the top, and Aislinn Prendergast and Natasha Key hot in pursuit.
Matt Crane leads the senior men’s competition by a single point from Simon Uppill. With Ian Lawford not contesting the remainder of the week’s events, they will fight out the individual award. The Canberra Cockatoos, having seen their lead shrink to five points, expanded it again to fourteen over the Nuggets. They are warm favourites, although the loss of Lawford will not help.
Matt Doyle and Lanita Steer have the inside running in the junior competitions, although Anna Dowling’s two convincing wins on the weekend give her a chance if she can maintain her winning streak, and Winnie Oakhill and Patrick Jaffe could also contend if they can win twice. Both team titles are being fought out by the Victorian Nuggets and the Tassie Foresters. The Foresters’ junior women are ten points clear which should be enough, but the junior men’s, where the Nuggets lead by four, will probably come down to relays day.
Full points for the senior and junior divisions are available.