NSW orienteers won 18 events on the final weekend of the 2018 Australian championships in South Australia.
Ten people won the Long champs on Saturday, and a further eight triumphed in Sunday's South Australian Middle Champs - including memorable wins to Gayle Quantock (Newcastle, W55A) and Ron Pallas (Uringa, M45AS).
'The main action was on Saturday, with the blue-ribbon Australian Long Champs at Gumeracha Goldfields east of Adelaide. The terrain was spur-gully, with some pine and native forest. When the results were tallied across all age classes, Victoria reclaimed the OA Shield from NSW.
Our winners were: Samantha Howe (W35A, NC), Cath Chalmers (W45A, BF), Salme Fuller (W45AS, IK), Barbara Hill (W50A, GO), Paula Shingler (W55A, BF), Lynn Dabbs (W65A, WH), Jean Baldwin (W75A, GS), Maureen Ogilvie (W85A, UR), Alvin Craig (M16A, NC), John le Carpentier (M75A, SH).
Barbara Hill's victory (pictured) in W50 was especially sweet, downing good friend and close rival Jenny Enderby and atoning for two disastrous legs in the Aus Middle champs a week ago where she dropped almost 17 minutes.
We also had four second placings and eight thirds.
In Sunday's finale at Kenyes Gap, our winners were: Ron Pallas (M45AS, UR), Rob Vincent (M60A, NC), Brian Cleland (M80A, UR), Samantha Howe (W35A, NC), Jenny Enderby (W50A, NC), Gayle Quantock (W55A, NC), Val Hodsdon (W70A, SH), Maureen Ogilvie (W85A, UR).
The terrain was open farmland with moderate to steep ridges with complex rocky detail, bushy on the ridges.
NSW also had seven second placings and four thirds.
ONSW thanks Orienteering South Australia for a massive effort in staging eight events in 9 days, drawing 800 entries for each of the weekend events.
You can find all the results, splits and Routegadget here.
Next year's Australian championships will be split between Western Australia at Easter (entries are already open), and the Oceania champs in the Riverina in September-October.
