Australian Team

World Orienteering Championships, Inverness, Scotland  31^st July-7^th August.

The team to represent Australia at the World Orienteering Championships is:

Men

Lachlan Dow-Middle, Sprint Relay

Bryan Keely- Sprint, Long

Ian Lawford- Sprint

Brodie Nankervis- Sprint

Simon Uppill-Middle, Long, Sprint Relay

Women

Hanny Allston- Sprint, Middle, Long, Sprint Relay

Rachel Effeney- Sprint, Sprint Relay

Krystal Neumann- Sprint

Laurina Neumann- Long

Vanessa Round- Long

Anna Sheldon- Middle

Coaches: Tom Quayle, Wendy Read

Reserves for each discipline will come from within the selected team.

Relay (forest) composition will be finalised closer to the competition date.

Program

Fri 31^st July- Sprint Qualification, Forres.

Sat 1^st August-Sprint Relay, Nairn.

Sun 2^nd August-Sprint Final, Forres.

Tues 4^th August- Middle Distance, Darnaway.

Wed 5^th August- Relay, Darnaway.

Fri 7^th August- Long Distance, Glen Affric.

WOC 2015 website

Nick Dent

Australian Team wins AUS-NZ Test Match

After 3 days of close racing in Woodhill Forest, the Australian Bushrangers have pipped the New Zealand Pinestars 285-280 to take the Aspin-Key Trophy back across the Tasman. On Day 3 at Otakanini Topu, with only the women’s elite to be decided the score stood at 257-257, but the Australian victory in that grade proved decisive. Ironically, the Kiwis actually won 3 of the 4 grades, but overall it was the Australian Junior women who made the difference with a big 37 point margin over their New Zealand counterparts.

M21: NZ 79     AUS 56 (Brodie Nankervis, Lucas Frei, Ashley Nankervis)

W21: NZ 76   AUS 75 (Aislinn Prendergast, Anna Sheldon, Krystal Neumann, Rachel Effeney, Heather Muir)

M20: NZ 69   AUS 61 (Matt Doyle, Aidan Dawson, Jarrah Day)

W20: NZ 56    AUS 93 (Nicola Blatchford, Winnie Oakhill, Lanita Steer, Anna Dowling, Olivia Sprod)

Overall: NZ 280    AUS 285

There were three days of competition over the long weekend in Woodhill Forest north of Auckland. Day 1 was a long distance event in steep sand dunes with pine forest vegetation. Day 2 involved two middle distance events. The am event determined the starting order and start time for the pm event. This was a true chasing start with the winner from the am event starting first and all other runners starting at the time they were behind the winner in the am event. This produced some starters who were very close together, with some interesting pack running in the relatively flat sand dunes. On Day 3 there was a multi day length course in very low visibility detailed sand dune terrain.

In the W20 class Winnie Oakhill had three 1^st place out of the four events and in the M20 class Matt Doyle had one 1^st place and two 3^rd places out of the four events. The highlight was the team performances by both the senior women’s team and the junior women’s team. The junior women beating the NZ team by 37 over the three days. In W21E class Hanny Allston had three wins out of the four races. In M21E class Brodie Nankervis finished 3^rd on Day 1.

These events followed a five day training camp which was attended by 15 athletes from the National HP Squads as well as the coaches Jim Russell, Roch Prendergast, Lucas Frei and JWOC Coach Hanny Allston and JWOC Manager Karen Blatchford. The training involved two days in the sand dunes of Woodhill Forest and a day of sprint training in Auckland.

Detailed report on training camp coming soon.

Results and Splits

QB New Zealand Results

QB Splits

Nick Dent

Orienteering Australia

High Performance News

 May 12^th 2015

Tiomila Relay

Last weekend saw the running of the large and very important Swedish relay-Tiomila. There was live TV including GPS tracking and also live commentary and results. The men’s race was very close and was not decided until the very last control of the 10^th leg after 7 hours 43 minutes of orienteering. Three teams, IFK Goteborg (Eskil Kinneberg), Kalevan Rasti (Thierry Gueorgiou) and Halden SK (Magne Daehli) ran the last long leg (17.5km) together until Eskil Kinneberg outsprinted the other two coming into the arena to claim a very narrow victory for IFK Goteborg. Five teams started the last leg together and unfortunately the IFK Lidingo runner Fedrik Johansson made a couple of errors and lost contact with the leading three runners.

Of the Australians who were running Julian Dent (IFK Lidingo) was at the back of the leading group at the end of Leg 2 (1:03) after being with the leaders until a small mistake at control 14. His team was in the lead at the end of leg 9 and finished in 4^th place to follow up their second place in 2014. They are now very much looking forward to the next main relay- Jukola- to be held on 13^th June in Finland.

Henry McNulty ran the third leg which was a long 16.9 km at night with no splits. A very great experience for Henry to be running with the best orienteers in this relay. Henry is with OK Linne and this was his first experience in this relay. He finished his leg in 96^th place. Leon Russell-Keely was also running the 3^rd leg and he went out with the leading pack of runners and was still in the leading pack when he finished. However, there are no splits available for him as I am told that his SI broke and so no time has been recorded. However, the GPS has Leon visiting all controls, so despite the SI problem a very good run by Leon. The WOC Coach Tom Quayle also competed for his Swedish club. Tom ran the 8^th leg and finished in 87^th place, and just over a minute in front of Simone Niggli who was running for the women’s team that competed in the men’s event.

GPS tracking and maps

http://omaps.worldofo.com/index.php?s=lastadded&cid=594

Winsplits

http://obasen.orientering.se/winsplits/online/en/default.asp?page=classes&databaseId=36190

World Cup

The next round of the World Cup will be held in Norway and Sweden 3^rd-7^th June. There will be a long distance event and a sprint relay in Halden and then a middle distance event and a sprint distance event in NW Sweden.

Australia will have four entrants in these events: Vanessa Round (Long, Middle), Henry McNulty (Sprint, Middle), Leon Russell-Keely (Long, Middle) and Matt Schepisi (Sprint, Middle).

NOL Round 8 and 9- Middle and Long Distance

The entries for these very important events for all national squad members close on Wed 13^th May. These two events are important for WOC 2015 selection and also provide the JWOC team members valuable racing experience before they travel to Norway.

Entries:

http://eventor.orienteering.asn.au/Events

Event details:

http://act.orienteering.asn.au/events/2015_Autumn_Classics/

We will also be launching the new sponsorship arrangement that we have just agreed to with Icebug Australia. The details of this sponsorship which will cover the WOC and JWOC teams as well as the National Orienteering League will be announced at these events.

New Zealand Training Camp and Bushrangers Test matches.

23 national squad athletes and 5 coaches will be travelling to New Zealand for a training camp in the week after the NOL events Mon 25^th May- Fri 30^th May and then to compete in the long weekend events in the Woodhill Forest north of Auckland. These vents will be test matches against New Zealand (team and details to be available later this week).

Event website:

http://qb2015.aoa.org.nz/

Tonight is the largest orienteering relay held in Sweden the home of orienteering. For the men there are teams of 10 runners and for the women there are teams of 5 runners.

The women’s event starts at 14:30 (22:30EST) and all legs are in daylight. There is over 340 teams entered from clubs, mostly Scandinavian. The men’s event starts at 21:30 (5:30 EST) with the first 6 legs being in the dark. There are over 300 teams entered in the men’s relay. The mens relay is expected to finish at 7:30 (3:30EST)

There is live web TV of the events including GPS tracking and also live results

http://www.10mila.se/index.php/en/onlinelive2015eng

There will be some Australian and New Zealand representation. Julian Dent who was in the second placed Lidingo SOK team in 2014 will again be running the second leg for the Lidingo SOK team and they are one of the favourites this year after their great effort last year.Julian was the first finisher on leg 2 last year. Leon Russell-Keely will be running third leg for Lillomarka OL (Norway) and Henry McNulty will also be running the third leg for OK Linne (2). This is the long night leg (16.5km) without any forking. Also Matt Ogden (NZ) will be running leg 9 for the OK Linne (1) team.

Lizzie Ingham (NZ) who has just moved to Halden in Norway will be running leg 4 for the Halden (2) team in the women’s relay.

Comment from the World Of O describing this years relay

Long night already on 3rd leg – more unforked legs than usually

Last year the men’s 10Mila relay opened with two legs in daylight – and the long night was all the way back at the 6th leg. This year the first leg (13.1 km) is back in the dark, with the long leg already at the 3rd leg after a shorter second leg (10.4 km). That means that it will be very important for aspiring winners to stay in touch with the leaders for the two first legs – to not risk missing the big 10Mila train on the unforked 16.5 km long night on the third leg.  After the long night, there is still room for a lot to happen in the dark on legs 4 (8.6 km), 5 (11.4 km) and 6 (7.5 km, unforked) – this short 6th unforked leg might very well be where many teams loose contact with the leader as we have seen many times before. Many teams may underestimate the challenge on this leg – this will definitely be an interesting leg even if it is unforked if there are some small gaps going in to the leg.

It starts getting light on the 7th leg (10.2 km; the sun gets up at 04:23, this is exactly the expected time for changeover AFTER the 7th leg) – while the 8th (12.6 km), 9th (8.5 km, unforked) and 10th (17.5 km) are run in daylight. Thus a total of 3 unforked legs this year.

The start for the men’s relay is at 21:30 CET with the winners expected in the finish at 7:30. That means fast terrain – down towards 5:10 min/km for the 116 km.

Long, unforked day for the women

The women’s relay is a 5 leg relay as always – run in daylight with start at 14:30 CET. The first leg is 7.3 km forked, followed by two forked legs (6.0 km and 7.2 km). Then the 4th leg might be decisive even if it is unforked; 10.5 km is a long leg in the women’s class with expected winning time of 63 minutes. The character of the straight leg is thus completely changed compared to previous years. Now it includes long legs and important route choices where time can be gained. The last leg is a few kilometers shorter with 8.6 km. Expected time for the winners finishing is at 18:29.

See more comment and analysis at

http://news.worldofo.com/2015/05/08/10mila-2015-all-you-need-to-know/