Wendy Stevenson ends a season of amazing runs at the Sydney Summer Series

Last Updated: Friday, 06 July 2012 15:44

With 26 events under her belt and 2600 points representing 26 winning runs there was no doubting who was going to be Sydney Summer Series Champion this year.  Wendy Stevenson had an immaculate set of races, beating all comers in the Veteran Women's class and out point scoring everyone else to take the trophy. 

The last race in the Series was held at Macquarie University. With few hills and plenty of building detail, the course had the feel of a sprint event albeit a rather long one.  Deep grass on the open areas of the map sapped some of the runners' energy but these areas were balanced nicely with very quick legs around paved areas of the campus and local streets.

There were some amazingly close results, with a number of equal first places being awarded. For badge purposes, where perfect scores of 1200 were matched, delving into the series event scoring detail was the only way to differentiate between top scorers. Even then it was by very slim margins.  Lisa Grant in the Open Women took top badge from Gill Fowler this way, as did Glen Horrocks from Richard Green in Masters Men.  Steve Ryan was a veteran of 26 races this season and scoring the full 1200 took first place from Andrew Hill, who despite injury part way through the season still had such a great set of results that Mark Schaefer couldn't catch him.  Michael Burton won in convincing style ahead of Malcolm Bradley and Andy Graham; Eoin Rothery was the winner of the Super Veteran class.  NSW Junior Squad members Matthew Hill and Michele Dawson took top honours in the Open Men and Open Women categories. 

Full results for the race and for the season will be available soon on the Sydney Summer Series page.

The winter bush orienteering season has started, with club events already underway and the Metro League kicking off on Sunday 1st April out at Cecil Hills.  Anyone heading up to the Easter Carnival in Queensland will find this a great opportunity to brush up their bush orienteering skills.  For those who get withdrawal symptons from the Summer Series during the bush season, there is the monthly Moonlight Madness race series held at the full moon.  The first of that series is on 4th April in Northern Sydney.