And you don't get much stronger than Julian Dent winning the Men's A. Julian had a cracking set of races in amongst some great competition which included World Orienteering Championship veterans, up and coming youngsters and European internationals stopping off on their way to the World Cup in NZ later in January. NSW had two other top 10 placings with Rob Preston at 5th and Kasimir Gregory at 9th. Grace Crane dominated the Women's A class; our best result was Lisa Grant from Garingal who has made the transition from summer street orienteer to forest force to be reckoned with.
The 5 day carnival was particularly challenging as each day provided a very different type of terrain, preventing runners from relaxing into the maps. Day 1 was traditional spur/gully running in the Chiltern Box-Ironbark National Park, followed on Day 2 at Barambogie, a model map produced for the Australian Champs in 2003, which provided steep slopes, granite and even a sprinkling of pine forest. Day 4 Rowdy Flat, that gold mining favorite, was a tester for all age classes with clever course setting by Blair Trewin making sure everyone worked hard on that tricky map. Temperatures stayed the comfortable side of warm, avoiding the high fire risk which the organisers had worried might interfere with the smooth running of the carnival.
With plenty of top ten results in the competition classes NSW had a great competition. Notables in the combined overall results were:
Men's B Matt Hill 6th
Women's B Phoebe Dent 4th,
Men's C Daniel Hill 6th
Women's C Paula Savolainen 1st, Carolyn Matthews 4th, Cath Chalmers 5th, Hillary Wood 6th,
Men's D Eoin Rothery 1st, Steve Flick 2nd, Robert Preston 5th, Gordon Wilson 6th,
Women's D Toy Martin 5th, Men's E Dave Lotty 4th,
Women's E Caroline Taurany 3rd, Caroline Rogers 5th, Becky Rogers 6th
Men's F Duncan Currie 3rd, Sam Rogers 4th
Women's F Joanna Hill 1st
Men's G Ewan Shingler 1st, Jared McKenna 2nd, Tom Kennedy 4th
Novice Ellen Currie 1st, Nea Shingler 3rd, Oscar Power 5th
Full results can be found on the Christmas 5 Day website here
