Latest ONSW News
Mountain Devils is headed back to the Southern Highlands for some mid-winter MTBO racing! On Saturday 28 July, we'll be at Penrose SF for SS5, which hasn't seen a Mountain Devils event for a number of years. So come and re-acquaint yourself with the forest! Stay overnight at Belanglo Hut in Belanglo SF, ready for Sunday's SS6, which will be an exciting mass start and Score Course that will really test your decision making on the fly.
Both forests are a mix of open pine and eucalypt, with easy riding for short courses and longer courses venturing into steeper and undulating terrain. Whilst both forests lend themselves to long distance courses we have made some courses on Saturday a bit shorter to suit a winter afternoon.
Entry is open now on the Mountain Devils web site until Sunday 22nd July.
After consultation with the selection panel, the squad that will travel to Tasmania this year to contest the 2012 Australian Schools Championships was announced this week. This year's squad has a balance of new faces combined with those who already have experience running at State level, as well as Junior Elite international Michele Dawson, recently returned from competing at JWOC 2012.
The squad to represent NSW in the 2012 Australian Schools Championships in Tasmania, is as follows.
Junior Girls
Georgia Jones, Rebecca George, Melissa Annetts, Kate Kennedy, Samantha Wallace
Senior Girls
Michele Dawson, Nicola Blatchford, Felicity Barker Smith
Junior Boys
Daniel Hill, Scott Charlton, Toby Wilson, Callum Davis, Alex Kennedy
Senior Boys
Matthew Hill, Aidan Dawson, Lawrence Jones, Daniel Parton
Selector Geoff Todkill sends his congratulations to all squad members who will be contacted in the near future by Team Managers Karen and Russell Blatchford. He reminds the squad to keep training hard, as the final selection races are still ahead in State Leagues 10 and 11. The selection of the final teams, including naming of reserves, will occur at the presentations following the NSW Schools Champs, and will also be published on the ONSW website.
Julian Dent's move to Sweden is paying off with some fantastic performances at this year's World Orienteering Championships in Lausanne. He qualified for the Sprint Final by coming 6th in his heat, a mere 12 seconds behind heat winner Adam Kovacs of Hungary. He finished in 32nd place in the final with fellow Australian David Brickhill-Jones in 39th. They were the only two Australians to make it to the Sprint Final, but there were some near misses with Simon Uppill narrowly missing out with an 18th place in his heat and Rachel Effeney even closer in 16th (the top 15 go through) and only 14 seconds behind the 15th place runner Esther Doetsch of Germany. Lizzie Ingham of NZ won her heat and followed it up with a terrific finish in 9th place in the final which was won by the seemingly unbeatable Simone Niggli-Luder of Switzerland.
Julian's form continued into the Long Distance Qualification race with a 7th place in his heat. Rachel Effeney and Vanessa Round had good runs in their heats but missed out on qualification so it will only be Aislinn Prendergast running for Australia in the Womens Long Distance Final after qualifying in 14th place in her heat. Vanessa Round does get a run in the Middle Distance Final qualifying in 12th in her heat.
The racing continues with the Middle Distance Final with full GPS tracking, live blog and internet TV at 8pm AEST 17th July. Julian races again in the Long Distance Final on Thursday 19th July at 9.17pm AEST with Aislinn Prendergast off at 7.43pm AEST. Follow all the action on the WOC site http://woc2012.ch/en/live-centre.html
There was much antipodean excitement at the JWOC last week with Matt Ogden winning the Middle Distance race, and bringing the first Gold medal ever in this event at JWOC for New Zealand. The Australian team managed one runner in the A final, with Ian Lawford finishing a personally satisfying week for him in the individual races, with a 27th place. NSW runner Kasimir Gregory was 32 in the B final, and Alex Massey 9th in the C final. The Australian women were all racing in the Middle B final and Garingal's Michele Dawson had a great run to take the best Australian women's placing of 17th.
There was more excitement in the final event of the week with the relays, with a terrific performance by the Australian men coming 11th overall in a competition which saw seconds separately runners' placings in each leg. The Australian men's B team also had a great run coming 28th out of a field of 59. The women's team had a steady race with all members of the team well matched and coming in 31st overall. More reporting available on the Orienteering Australia website. Full results on the JWOC website
