Goanna separates sheep from the goats

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Last Updated: Wednesday, 27 August 2014 13:56

The 2014 Goanna, the third year of this goat racing format, had a distinctly international flavour as it moved into the winter calendar on the Macquarie Uni map.

Craig Ogilvie, a member of the Rand OC executive in South Africa, was here on holidays, saw the event on the calendar, and entered. And a late starter on the GeckO course was Aco Stamenkovski from Macedonia. Dobra work !

The mass start format saw many of the 67 runners remain at the big green flag for 30-60 seconds while working out the optimal route to the first control on each course, and perhaps their 'skip'.

With following allowed and permission to skip one control (two on the Goanna), it was worth planning ‘the skip’ early on to avoid possibly losing time in the green or from a climb.

The two longer courses had plenty of climb and crossed Lane Cover River twice. Fortunately the week’s rain meant only the shoes got wet, although Maggie Jones (UR) found a way to cross back via the weir waist-deep! “It was lovely, I needed cooling off,” she reported.

First finisher was Garingal club captain Tania Kennedy on the GeckO (4.3km) course. Tania skipped #5. When she entered Christie Park she cut straight across the oval to #6 (187), and finished in 32 minutes exactly. She was followed by four outstanding juniors in Ewan Shingler (runner-up for the second year), Finn Mackay, Jonathan Koruga and Tania’s youngest son Tom.

Ewan and Finn were three minutes up on Tania heading into Christie Park but somehow took 8 minutes going from the car wreck (5-#188) to the track end (7-#180) near the tennis courts. Tania knows this area from SSS and must have slipped by the distracted duo, who had skipped 6-#187.

Winner of the DraGOn (6.2km) course was BigFoot’s Swedish star Patrik Gunnarsson. Patrik was nursing a gammy leg but still sped around in 46.47 to win by almost 20 minutes. He wasted three minutes looking for that fiendish 3 (#189) and dropped, rather peculiarly, the very last control inside the sportsfields.

John Bulman (GO) pipped Alice Westwood (UR) in a sprint finish for the silver. John was three minutes clear heading to the fork but chose the car wreck over the boulder and lost time, and more time heading into the housing estate for the box. Alice snuck in front at C but John edged 5 seconds ahead by D and held on by 6 seconds.

Winner of the GOanna (9.6km) at last (mp in 2012, 2nd last year) was GO long-distance specialist Glenn Horrocks who was home in an impressive 55m 46s. Less than two minutes separated the next three runners: ONSW president Greg Barbour (BF), GO junior Toby Wilson and the Feet’s Andy Simpson.

Most of the top placegetters dropped #8 (going there made the box A-B-C-D a lot longer to complete) and one other bush control. I expected most to also choose #5 but some left out one of the ones near the end on the north side of the river.

The long course began with a long leg to compulsory control #1, home to the obligatory lizard. Options were north out of the sportsfields onto the bush track, or south out of the fields onto the roads, under the M2 and then bush bash down or take the cycle path around to the bush track.

Afterwards there was lots of post-race discussion as to tactics. This further cements the great sense of community among orienteers and their thirst for problem solving.

The Splits and Routegadget make for interesting reading and show the variety of options that people took. Of particular interest on the Dragon was how many went to 8b (#173, the car wreck that looked very gettable) compared to 8a (#171  behind the boulder).

Thank you to the enthusiastic participants whose love of O make this event fun to set. I wonder how people feel about having the Goanna on a sprint map for a change?