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Goat racing is here to stay, judging by the enthusiastic response to the inaugural GOanna event at South Turramurra on Sunday. Over 50 orienteers turned up to the first GOanna, brainchild of ONSW Marketing Officer Ian Jessup, and they were a little unsure what to expect. What they got was mostly line course, with a small section of scatter course at some stage, some forked controls, the option to skip a control or controls, a mass start - and permission to 'follow', a practice otherwise discouraged in our sport. So tactics would have to be made up on the run, along with switching modes and trying to work out which control(s) to skip. (It was so complex to program that the SI computer crashed midweek trying to calculate the number of permutations!)
The comfort zone of a standard score or line course was thrown out the window as runners were confronted with much mental arithmetic as well as keeping an eye on their rivals. And so it proved, with O luminaries Michael Burton and Glenn Horrocks among the casualties to DNF. They were among nine of the 26 GOanna entries (9km) to unwittingly spike the wrong control midway through their course. This was perhaps a sneaky piece of course setting, but they paid the price for not checking their clue sheet. Winner Eric Morris of Bennelong Northside showed a clean pair of heels and an astute mind: not only did he run 8.1km in a tad over 40 minutes in testing terrain, but he had a strong feeling upon coming out of what he thought was #10a at a track junction (and actually was #1 from the GeckO) that the control was too close to the main track. He went back to check and sure enough found it was the wrong control. 20m farther up the track indeed was #10a. What great orienteering and presence of mind! With minimal fuss Eric completed his course and took home the Xmas pudding kindly donated by the NSW junior squad, beating his brother Richard by three minutes.
On the 6km DraGOn course, all 9 entrants completed the course. First home was Ken Jacobson of Garingal in 45m38s. Only 15 seconds separated second from fourth, with WHO's Ian Miller deadheating with Garingal's Tim Cox for third - bringing back memories of Bonecrusher and Our Waverley Star !
And on the 4km GeckO (dropping the tail off the shorter courses), it was a different Cox - Mel from BN - who got the pudding in a time of 28m40s. All that time spent on Letters and Numbers clearly paid off as Mel pipped GO's NSW rookie junior Alex Kennedy by 1m20s.
With a staggered start for the 3 courses, the idea was that all the runners would converge near where the GeckO (shortest course) entered the bush. That did not quite happen as the GOanna big guns flew around the magnificent bush of the Browns Waterhole map in Lane Cove National Park, meaning the later (and often slower) starters were playing cat rather than mouse. My apologies for underestimating our elites !
The event was an experiment to (1) see if there is scope for an annual event unlike any other on the ONSW calendar, (2) keep the runners under constant decision-making pressure and (3) have a bit more 'fun' than might be evident in our usual events.
There was much animated discussion and post-race analysis, all of it curious and good-natured. "Which controls did you skip?", "In which order did you do the box?", "How did you go from the box to #8?" "That was great, a lot of fun."
A huge thank you must go to:
* Ross Duker for doing SI and helping put out controls on Saturday evening in extreme heat and humidity
* Steve Ryan for also putting out controls and sweeping up most of them behind the last runner on Sunday
* Dave Stitt for driving Steve around on Sunday
* Bev Johnson for looking after rego
* Barb Dawson for organising the prizes
* everyone who entered for having a go at something different and making it a rewarding event organising experience.
The results, splits and courses are on the Garingal results page http://garingal.com.au/index.php/results?task=view&id=346
Thanks to Ian Jessup for this report - and a fantastic new event!
Congratulations to Nick Dent, Central Coast Orienteers, and Head Coach NSW who has been appointed High Performance Operations Manager for Orienteering Australia.
Nick brings a wide breadth of experience to the role. He has been orienteering since 1984 and is a Level 3 coach and controller. He was JWOC coach in 2005, 2006, 2008 and 2009 and Event Director of the World Masters in 2009.
Orienteering Australia thanks his predecessor, Gareth Candy, who will continue to input in a voluntary capacity.
Thanks to Kay Haarsma for this report
The NSW Juniors have had a fantastic 2012 with some of the best results achieved in recent years. This is due to their own hard work, the time and effort put in by the managers, Karen and Russell Blatchford, and expertise of their coach, Nick Dent. However all of this would not have been possible without the backing of the NSW orienteering community at large and they are very appreciative of all the support they have been given during 2012.
Significant financial support has come from ONSW and from stalwart supporters, the Carbines who increased their contribution this year, from Big Foot Orienteers who generously donated some of the SL1/2 entry fees to the NSW juniors and Newcastle Club who permitted us to use their maps to set courses and run the Xmas 5 days which was profitable for us. Apart from that we have been fundraising at all the State League events through catering and raffles and we have received enormous support from the orienteering community. So if you have ever bought a raffle ticket, a cake or a burger from our fundraising ventures then this certificate of appreciation is partly yours.
Thank you for giving us such wonderful opportunities. NSW Juniors
State League orienteers will be well aware of the problems with State Leagues 1 & 2 at Snow Hills this year which were rained off in March, postponed until October and finally washed out and cancelled. Fated State League 1&2 organiser Mark Shingler writes:
'We were finally able to access the property last weekend and retrieve the control stands and flags we had left in place after the deluge. The forest was looking fantastic with a display of wild flowers not seen for years - why couldn't it have been like this last month? The sub-junior members of ACT Blue Sparks and NSW Wildfires were able to experience the area through the training session Jock Davis & David Poland/Toni Brown organised on Saturday.
Andy Simpson, President of Big Foot passed on his thanks to the disappointed but patient members of the orienteering community.
'Many thanks to all of you who indicated they were happy to donate their entry fee to the junior squads. Your generosity has allowed us to give $3,500 to the NSW squad and $2,000 to the ACT squad, the split being in line with the entries. The club was happy that something positive came out of what was a very frustrating exercise for all of us. Some club members spent over 30 hours just driving to and from the area in the course of the year, never mind the work they did on the event itself.
With this extra funding we should see some exciting performances from our juniors in the year ahead!