Nea wins NOL title, Erika stuns junior elite field

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Last Updated: Thursday, 20 May 2021 09:21

Big Foot 16-year-old Nea Shingler is the junior women's National League champion for 2021 after a pulsating final weekend in tricky sand dunes at Broulee on the NSW South Coast.

Nea trailed South Australian Emily Sorensen heading into Saturday's last individual race with double points on offer. Both girls made mistakes and finished well back, but Nea's sixth placing - three minutes ahead of Emily - allowed her to triumph by a tiny margin (178-177) across their best six events.

While those two were battling for overall honours, Newcastle 14-year-old Erika Enderby had the run of her life to record her first race win in W20 - despite conceding up to six years in age and experience.

The new map featured lots of thick hip-high vegetation, small depressions and tiny knolls - making map contact essential. 

This kind of orienteering terrain is very rare in Australia and it produced slow km rates in the older age groups who found the thick undergrowth and low visibility quite challenging.

In the junior men's section, David Stocks (ACT) won M20 overall after beating Nea's brother and previous series leader Ewan by four minutes on Saturday.

In Sunday's relays, the NSW junior women (Nea, Erika and older sister Mikayla - all pictured here) easily won W20 while the junior men were second.

Alastair George (BF) proved his pedigree in his first year in senior men (M21) by finishing fourth overall. Congratulations.

Results and splits are on our State League web page.

Final NOL standings can be found here.

Thanks to OACT for a great weekend in unique terrain.