Latest ONSW News

There is a bush training session being run this Tuesday 10^th July at Soapy Flat near Mittagong in the Southern Highlands, and any ONSW member is welcome to attend.  The session is being run by Junior Squad team manager, and recent Newcastle Coalfields Classic Sprint setter, Karen Blatchford.  The training will be making use of SI so that you can analyse your data afterwards.  If you would like to come along please let Karen Blatchford know by emailing here at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., and she will let you have the final details and make sure there is a map for you.

This will be the second training outing for the Junior Squad these holidays as Graeme Dawson (Garingal) set a Czech relay on the Wattle Ridge map this week for the team.  As well as the squad there were quite a few other orienteers who also came along.  Corinne Fulford (SHOO), Airdrie Long (Garingal) and Dave Lotty (Uringa) took full advantage of a great map and interesting training exercise to brush up their fine navigation. Coaching for some of the younger juniors was available with youngsters like Hugh Gingell, a Garingal junior who will be moving up to Moderate courses this year, having a go at some technically difficult controls.  Josh Blatchford, up from Canberra, also training, shadowed some of the older squad around the course to give them an Elite eye view of orienteering.

Sometimes you can be right in the middle of Sydney and yet be enjoying some glorious rock and bush trails.  Bennelong Northside's Come and Try It event at Allambie Heights on the Manly Dam map on Sunday 6 July gave beginners a little taste of what bush orienteering can be like, and the more experienced a few challenges too.  There were quite a few new faces at the event including some intrepid families with little ones who took on the easy course together. The Currie family from Garingal had a great outing with Ellen winning the Very Easy course and Duncan the Easy course.  Duncan was only prevented from winning the Moderate Short by Bennelong's Michael Halmy and a bare 10 seconds.  Big Foot runners Patrik Gunnarson and Stephen Craig took the top two places in the Moderate Long with Patrik's winning time of 40:55 leaving scorch marks in the forest.

Our Junior Elites have been battling through the heat at the JWOC in Slovakia in their first races.  The Sprint on Sunday was around Kosice city centre in 33 degrees of heat which caused some of the runners more problems than what they described as a disappointingly easy course.  Ian Lawford (ACT) had the best of the Sprints for Australia coming 20th in 14:59 but the quality of the field was such that even our lower placed runners were less than 3 minutes behind the winner. Heather Muir (QLD) had a solid effort coming in the top 100 only 3:15 behind winner Tove Alexandersson from Sweden.

Monday saw the Long Distance races contested where weather once again provided more challenges.  Overcast and humid conditions greeted the early runners, whilst later runners had thunder, lightening and heavy rain to contend with.  The Australian juniors fared better in the Long Distance than they had in the Sprint with 7 out of the 10 runner team placing in the top 100.  This was due to the fact that there were few major errors made by the Australians and indeed looking at the splits the team were well prepared with steady starts and generally improving speeds across the latter half of the courses.   This strength and poise in their runs belies the fact that there are a number of new faces on the team this year, and bodes well for future Australian international competitions as these young Elites gain experience at this level.

The competition continues today with the Middle Distance qualification races - follow the action on-line at http://www.jwoc2012.sk when the races start at 6pm AEST.

Space Racing at Bicentennial Park this week attracted a set of hardy souls not put off by a little cold weather and a touch of drizzle.  A  group of over 40 children from Maroubra kept the ONSW busy as they helped the youngsters tackle the score course around the park.  Bicentennial Park is a perfect place for Space Racing with it’s beautiful parkland, path networks, lakes and streams and even the odd statue to navigate around.  Quickest around the course was Aidan Dawson, Junior Squad member, in a zippy 18 minutes. With juice still in his legs he joined the efforts of the fellow Junior Squad members, Lawrence  and Georgia Jones, and Daniel Hill as they went out again to shadow and coach some of the younger racers in groups.