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Lanita Steer and Jenny Bourne did the clean sweep of the three Australian Championships races last week. Steer, in W17-20E, was pushed hard in two of the three races, only winning the sprint and middle by narrow margins against Tara Melhuish and Zoe Dowling respectively, whilst Bourne was commanding throughout in W60A, winning all three races by margins of at least three minutes. Jenny Hawkins was the resident champion in all three W70A races, although New Zealand’s Patricia Aspin was ahead of her in the middle and long. (A number of others took three wins in classes where they were the only competitor in at least one event). Only a few others did the forest championships double, with Patrick Miller (M16A), Stephen Craig (M45A) and Mark Nemeth (M50A) the others to take out the long and middle.

In marked contrast to Steer’s effort, the other three elite classes all had three different winners. After Simon Uppill took the M21E sprint honours, the New Zealand duo of Matt Ogden and Nick Hann split the forest events, with Ogden prevailing in the long and Hann in the middle. Uppill was the resident champion in the long, and new Australian citizen Matt Crane in the middle. Jo Allison ran away with the W21E long distance, but was one of several major casualties of the first control in the middle distance, as Bridget Anderson held firm to win her first senior national title. In M17-20E, Patrick Jaffe turned the tables from last year against the New Zealanders in the long, but Tommy Hayes returned the favour in the middle.

The Orienteering Australia Shield was contested at the Long Championships, with New South Wales adding it to a long list of triumphs. They led with 62 points, with the other points being Queensland 46, ACT 43, Victoria 40, Tasmania 32, SA 13, WA 9.

Full results for the carnival are available on Eventor.

Australia Bushrangers Take out Tightly Contested Test-Match

The Australian Bushrangers secured the overall victory in the final Test Match for 2016. The male divisions were closely contested across both senior and junior classes. The senior and junior women’s classes swung towards the Australian Bushrangers over the last weekend.

The two rounds held over the final weekend were very close in the senior men’s division. The final round round in the middle distance race was drawn, both teams locked on 26 points. However, the two point lead from Saturday’s Long Distance race to the Australian Elite Males was enough to secure a narrow win in this class.

In the junior division the New Zealand males built on their 2 point lead in the first round at the Sprint, to have an 18 point lead after a strong final showing in the last event of the three race series. The Australian junior women had a resounding victory to anchor an overall win to the Australian juniors.

Australia took out the Test Match overall winning back the Aspin-Key Trophy after NZ won the first Test Match earlier in the year held near Wellington.

The ACT won the Australian Schools Orienteering Championships for the first time since 2006. They scored consistently across all three races, and had enough in hand to be able to withstand a mispunch in the junior boys’ relay, winning by five points from Queensland. South Australia, who got off to a great start through winning three of the four sprint races (through Angus Haines, Dante Afnan and Joanna George), came third in their best result since 2003.

Patrick Jaffe, after being surprised by Haines in the sprint, came good on the long distance day to win by more than five minutes, and then anchored the Victorian senior boys to a relay win. Caroline Pigerre kept her head whilst others lost theirs to give the Queenslanders something to cheer about in the senior girls (Tara Melhuish having won the sprint), while Tristan Miller took the junior boys. Sofie Safkova gave New Zealand their only individual triumph, but their depth across all classes gave them a comprehensive victory in the Southern Cross Junior Challenge.

The junior boys’ relay was one of the most dramatic run in Australia in recent memory. The top four were within seconds of each other for almost all of the second and third legs, and it looked to have become a race in two when Tristan Miller (ACT) and Alvin Craig (NSW) broke away from Sebastian Sakfa (NZ) on the climb into the final spectator control, but both went too high on the second-last control to allow Safka to slip through for the win (as it turned out the ACT had mispunched anyway).

ASOC scores: ACT 66, Queensland 61, SA 58, NSW 47, Tasmania 43, Victoria 39, WA 13.

SCJC scores: NZ 93, ACT 68, Queensland 61, SA 58, NSW 47, Tasmania 43, Victoria 40, WA 13.

The All-Australian Honour Team was also named at the end of the event:

Senior boys: Ewan Barnett (ACT), Joseph Dickinson (Tas), Angus Haines (SA), Patrick Jaffe (Vic).

Senior girls: Rachel Allen (Tas), Jo-Anna Maynard (WA), Tara Melhuish (ACT), Caroline Pigerre (Qld).

Junior boys: Dante Afnan (SA), Alvin Craig (NSW), Ryan Gray (Qld), Noah Poland (ACT).

Junior girls: Joanna George (SA), Mikaela Gray (Qld), Zoe Melhuish (ACT), Emily Sorensen (SA).

The Australian Junior Elite Bushrangers take lead in AUS-NZ Test Match on the Gold Coast

While the NZ Elite Junior Men take and narrow lead in the male division, a strong performance by the Australian Junior Women give the Australian Bushrangers a lead in the test series. The first of 3 tests for the juniors, saw a dominant performance by the Australian women taking out the top five places to secure the lead overall. The technical sprint area tested competitors across all fields with longer than expected wining times across many classes.

In the male class while Jarrah Day and Patrick Jaffe filled the top two places, a strong performance by the NZ males across the board gave NZ a narrow victory in this class by 3 points. In the women Lanita Steer and Tara Melhuish took out the top two places and the whole junior team performed strongly to amass the points for the bushrangers.

The test series moves to the granite terrain of the Southern Downs next weekend and while the Australian Bushrangers hold what appears a solid lead, the test series as a long way from being over.