The 2018 NSW Long Championships earned glowing reviews as two of our more remote clubs - Northern Tablelands and Bush n Beach - combined in perfect harmony near Armidale.
"I think these new maps make it to my top 10 in Australia. Really awesome areas!" said Krystal Neumann, JWOC manager and current NOL senior women's leader - and winner of W21A.
And this from Bennelong legend Terry Bluett: "The best orienteering weekend I've had in ages."
Pretty much everyone raved about the accuracy of the yellow, grey and green areas that allowed you to navigate carefully but with confidence - making for a fantastic experience in testing terrain.
Setter Tony Woolford (Bush n Beach) sapped every ounce of our physical and mental energy with courses that criss-crossed open areas of fast running, steep rocky sections, and the promised "football fields of bare rock".
We noted these excellent performances: the Barbour twins (Big Foot) coming second and third in W14A, Nerise McQuillan (WHO) winning W35AS, Carolyn Davies (Garingal) taking out W55AS, Barbara Junghans (GO) winning W65AS on crutches!, and ACT junior Patrick Miller claiming M21A.
See our State League web page for links to results, Winsplits and Routegadget.
We ask all competitors to please fill out the very brief Course Setter survey for each day. This information provides valuable feedback and helps determine who wins Course Setter of the Year.
Our next SL weekend is May 12-13 when we go back to Canberra for the ACT Sprint and Middle Champs. Entries close on Monday May 7.
On behalf of the nearly 300 orienteers from ACT, QLD, VIC, NSW, SA (thanks, Emily) and TAS (onya, Will) who ran on these brand new maps - a massive thank you to Northern Tablelands, the Coffs crew and controller Rob Vincent for an awesome weekend. Showcased everything we love about orienteering.
Click on the blue links for photos by Alec Watt from Saturday and Sunday, Terry Cooke from the Middle, Long and presentations, and Tony Hill. Thanks for these great images.
