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Tomorrow evening (Monday 17th January) sees competitors head out to Macquarie University for the third round of the 2010 Sydney Sprint Series.
Macquarie University was the location for the World Masters Qualifying event in October 2009, and it will be interesting to see how Garingal Orienteers' Ron Junghans makes use of the area - especially the underpasses and car parks!
Competitors are asked to note that for all orienteers coming to the event, the entry fee will be $13. This late increase of $3 is due to the university imposing a levy of $3/entry for the use of their grounds - you can see how under-funded our universities are.
Ron notes that this is an excellent area for sprint orienteering which will more than compensate for the added cost.
Ian (Ezy) Meyer after finishing at Macquarie UniThe third round of the 2011 Sydney Sprint Series saw 79 competitors coming to terms with course setter Ron Junghans' courses around the Macqaurie University campus in Marsfield.
On a warm and humid night, the competition was an unexpectedly international affair with runners from Norway and Hong Kong taking part. Norwegians Oystein Kvaal Osterbo and Elise Egseth were on a stopover on their way to this weekend's Sprint the Bay 2011 event at Hawkes Bay / Hastings area on New Zealand's North Island. Oystein came fourth in last year's Sprint World Championship, while Elise was a member of last year's successful Norwegian womens relay team.
With such pedigree competition, it wasn't going to be easy for Newcastle's Josh Blatchford to repeat his success of last week. Oystein was never headed throughout the race and won the 3.0Km course in 13m23s with Josh 95s behind. Ian (Ezy) Meyer (pictured) came in third and was only 9 seconds behind Josh at the finish. Ezy was ahead of Josh until control 8, but then lost 16 vital seconds, and while he was able to claw back some of the lost time, there wasn't enough distance left in the course for Ian to overtake Josh. Elise showed her sprint credentials by coming in 4th overall in 16m17s.
Full results and splits can be found here.
Thanks to Garingal's Ron and Barbara Junghans for setting and organising the event, and to event coordinator Terry Bluett for manning the finish computer.
Next week's event see competitors head into Sydney to compete at Sydney Park in St. Peters.
Budding orienteers raced around Bicentennial Park at Sydney Olympic Park in today's Space Racing adventure. Whilst Ethan and Caleb backed up from the last holidays and took line honours, the newcomers were also impressive. The Space Racers managed to read their maps, plan their routes, navigate around the park, run, locate the Space Stations, manage their time and complete their courses! There were some outstanding skills on show and very impressive scores from the first timers. Results from today's event are available here.
Be sure to catch the next Space Race on 12 April in the next school holidays!
Many thanks to Sydney Olympic Park for their ongoing support of orienteering, Mix106.5 for dropping by and the unbelievable team of orienteers that so enthusiastically and generously volunteer their time to the sport.
This week's event again saw more than 70 competitors take to the field at Sydney Park, St. Peters.
Tonight's results and splits from Round 4 of the 2011 Sprint Series can be found here.
