Youth prevailed at Garingal's annual Goanna event on Sunday at Macquarie Uni, where participants faced a host of decisions on top of the usual route choice conundrums.

 

Ewan Shingler (Big Foot) pipped Sophie Jones (Uringa) by eight seconds in a sprint to the finish to take out the GeckO (4km), while Garingal's Duncan Currie was a clear three-minute winner over Ewan's mum Paula (BF) in the DraGOn (6.6km).

In the blue ribbon GOanna (8.8km), GO star Glenn Horrocks won for the second year in a row (and backed up his recent triumph at WHO's Turkey Trot) with a 1m13s victory on clubmate Jeremy Fowler. Andrew Brown (BF) was third.

 

In each of the 3 races (with one big mass start) there was a box of 4 controls that could be done in any order, and some forks (where you had to visit a or b). In addition, on the GOanna you could skip two other controls, while the DraGOn and GeckO offered one skip. While the usual orienteering post-mortem is about route choice, at the Goanna it's all about the other choices: which fork? which skip? which order for the box?

 

While Ewan skipped #4, Sophie omitted the very last control - so the NSW Schools team buddies converged on the finish from different angles - with Ewan getting the gold after finishing second the two previous years. Airdrie Long (GO) was third.

 

Tom Kennedy (GO), the youngest of his family, pulled a swifty to pip older brother Alex for third in the DraGOn. Tom was not going to skip any controls (he's building up his fitness for the Aus champs in September) until he hit #11 at the pipe. Spotting an unmarked clearing beside the M2 fence, he powered through, decided to skip #12 and took bragging rights at the dinner table for the first time! 

 

Unfortunately, due to concerns about water levels following a deluge last week, course setter Ian Jessup had to forego a lovely cluster of 4 controls on the northern side of Lane Cove River that would have posed a very tough physical, mental and navigational challenge for the two longer courses.

 

See the Eventor page for results and course maps.

 

Also on Sunday, Mountain Devils staged a double header MTBO (mountain bike orienteering event) at Belanglo State Forest with a 5km sprint followed by a 10km middle distance score event.

 

The weather was cold and foggy, with the temperature at 9am hovering around 4 degrees Celsius! The sun emerged around midday, producing a beautiful windless mid-winter day, just in time for the post-race barbecue.

 

Results are on Eventor. Thanks to Michael Roylance for this report and the picture.